


Antithesis

by Nym



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Post-Year That Never Was, telepathic hanky-panky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2018-11-08 03:20:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 107,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11072985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nym/pseuds/Nym
Summary: It’s taken the Doctor several hundred years, plus one interminable year more, to realise that he and the Master… they aren’t even having the same argument. Haven’t been for a very long time.





	1. A Priori

He takes a look inside Lucy's mind before they lead her away, and understands that there's nothing he can do for her. She shattered on impact, long ago, seismic fracture lines spidering out from the crater that used to be the centre of her identity. He glimpses her memories, her neat recollections all laid out in a vellum album that, when he gently turns a page, have lost any sense of linear progression. Fragments of a life, where the only vivid memories are the ones that pertain to the Master's plans, to his carefully crafted fictional life as Harold Saxon. On one page there's Lucy's graduation day, proud father showing her off in her cap and gown. Lucy grips her scroll just a little too tightly, her gleaming, neutral nail polish and a simple ponytail making her look demure, too perfectly the ingénue. The next page is her white wedding day, her nail polish scarlet, Harry Saxon on her arm outside the church as confetti falls. He's beaming as he stares directly into the camera, with his eyes saying _'come on, come on, catch me if you can, stop me, Doctor, look at my wife. Look at my wife, my_ companion, _and see how prettily she'll break in my hands.'_

She did. She broke, and now the Doctor can't even find the reserve of self from which she summoned that last act of defiance and said his name. Lucy is a set of glossy snapshots pressed together in a book inside an empty and echoing room, and terror is the only emotion he can find inside her. He can't stitch the pieces back together with that. The only thing that might help her now is time, is being herself one day after the next until she's rebuilt the context of her being, and time's the one thing he can't spare for any human being. Not now.

As the guards lead her away, Lucy twists to look back at the Doctor, confusion bubbling up from the emptiness that's deadened her eyes these past months. He's awakened something in her, some tangible comprehension of the truth, and he's almost sorry for it.

The Master hasn't looked away the entire time, as the Doctor cupped Lucy's bruised face and slipped inside her unresisting mind, and a jealous, seething frustration is added to the indignity of handcuffs, to the solid grasp of Captain Jack who keeps him on his knees. To defeat. Another defeat.

"She was going to _kill_ me," the Master says. Indignant. Laughing eyes. His mastery of himself, in that moment, is absolute. His face and once-pristine shirt are speckled with high-velocity crimson.

"You're _not_ welcome," Jack says, positioning himself between the two of them with words alone. Shielding him from the need to answer. The fresh blood and the new bullet wound hardly show, he was in such a state to begin with, and there he is. Stoic and impossible, loyal and abominable Jack. Not many people take a bullet for the Master. Not many take a bullet and get up again, swearing. The Doctor thinks he could probably get used to that.

The Master holds his gaze and slowly, slowly, licks Jack's blood from his lips, savouring, taunting with his smile. _'How many times did I break this one while you watched? Can't go and undo that, can you?'_ Then he winks, and Jack, oblivious to the silent exchange, hauls him to his feet by the collar of his suit before the Doctor can go and forget all about forgiveness.

He deals with UNIT by ignoring them, striding through them. Stares unseeing down the barrels of several semi-automatic weapons until, from behind him, Jack simply says, low voiced and sincere, "I wouldn't". The men and women lower their weapons and break ranks, letting them pass. Letting _him_ pass. The Doctor feels his fists clenching involuntarily, and stuffs them into his pockets out of sight.

There's no negotiation. Not with UNIT and not with Martha Jones, who places herself and her family in the thick of the frantic military response and buys them just long enough. The Doctor owes her everything already, yet he can't even bring himself to look at her as he takes the Master to safety. He hears it all, though, fading into the distance as they walk away. Francine sobbing, oblivious; Tish catching on to Martha's ploy and making a fuss at the top of her lungs; Clive protecting, demanding that the soldiers lower their guns around innocent people; and Martha using the commotion to cover the Master's escape as the soldiers swarm in.

"There'll be hell to pay," Jack notes. Just that. He sounds breathless, and the Doctor glances at his waxen face, and knows that he's bleeding out; slowly, uncomplaining. Jack's not leaving his post until the Earth is safe. By the looks of him, they reach the TARDIS not a moment too soon.

"Medical bay," he says, startled by his own voice. His deliberate, laden silence this past year went on so long, and only once he's home does he even try to move beyond it. His home, his TARDIS, is a living ruin of herself, and in the silence that's replaced the desperate toll of the Cloister Bell, the Doctor can feel her screaming. "Now."

Jack obeys, his right hand at the back of the Master's neck to guide and propel him forward. It's his matter-of-factness that holds the Doctor's attention for the rest of the walk. Jack is focused on the task he's been given, and nothing – not the Master, not the hole in his upper chest, and not the Doctor – is allowed to be a distraction. That's the focus of immortality, of cold necessity that's been ground in so deeply, so often, that the stain is never coming out. On a human, and Jack still _is_ a human being, that's a veneer too rigid to bend. It can only hold or break.

"There." The Doctor indicates a tall-backed leather chair in the interior of the medical bay. It takes a brief scuffle for Jack to plant the Master in it, hard, and the air comes alive with Jack's conscious urge to cuff the prisoner across the face. This time, the Doctor is the one to put his voice between the two men, a warning word. "Jack."

The Doctor plucks tools and dressings and a blood pack from storage, willing hands defaulting to human medicine, because they always break so easily, those human companions. Always patching them up. Banged heads, alien plagues, sprained ankles. A few minutes without oxygen and they're practically dead. He can't have that, so he keeps everything here, collecting stuff like a medical magpie for when they break and need mending.

"Are we going to play _doctor?_ " This time, the Master's taunt misses the mark. Dry-mouthed with uncertainty, his sneer only sounds juvenile and desperate.

"Jack," the Doctor says again, and the Captain shuffles wearily around to face him. The Doctor pats the bed, and it takes Jack several sluggish seconds to understand that he's the reason for their detour via the medical supplies. Shaky, he strips off his filthy t-shirt and sits. Lets the Doctor get to work on his wound, before one of them succumbs to blood loss or the other comes crashing down off a godlike psychic high.

"No, it's quicker to just kill him," the Master calls, perched at the edge of the seat and ready to spring up. "I've really checked."

"He's not wrong," Jack says, and the Doctor's never heard ice like that in his voice before. "That is quicker." The offer is there, stony cold in a chiselled face. He wonders if Jack would forgive him for actually doing it.

The Doctor hooks him up to blood and fluids and treats the wound, wishing he couldn't see how much more blood there is than one little gunshot can account for.

"I'll dress it when you're clean," he says, unable to lend his voice any more warmth than he can see in Jack's face. "Patched up for now."

"Thanks."

Jack immediately shrugs, rotates and pulls at the shoulder, testing the regenerated tissue to its limit as he finds his new range of movement. The Doctor is mildly surprised when he doesn't immediately jump to his feet and rip the IV line out of his arm as well.

"Unless you happen to have a cure for megalomania lying around here, what about him?"

"Yes, Doctor. What about me?" With a credible effort at elegance, under the circumstances, the Master rises to his feet and keeps his balance. "I'm agog."

"Zero room," he answers, shortly. Can't look at him, so checks the flow rate of Jack's IV instead, increasing it slightly. "Time to think."

He doesn't need to be looking to sense another Time Lord's naked contempt.

"Will that fix him?" Jack is dubious, but either trusting enough or woozy enough to ask as if he hopes it's true.

"No," the Doctor says, and hears the Master say the word with him, disgusted.

"Great," sighs Jack, and yanks the IV out, rising meaningfully to his feet. "Will it at least contain him?"

"Yes." The Doctor ignores the Master's indignant exclamation to the contrary.

"Set foot outside this TARDIS and UNIT snipers will keep on shooting until you run out of regenerations." Jack grabs the Master by the elbow and directs him towards the door, not bothering to make it clear which of them he's talking to.

"Set foot outside the zero room and the TARDIS you perverted and tortured might increase the local gravity until you're compressed into roughly the space of a one inch cube," the Doctor adds, the old veneer of his own bright geniality beginning to harden and creak. "In self-defence. Plus I'm sealing you in there." He says all this for Jack's benefit, because his expression is uncompromising. The Master can reach these conclusions unaided, and by now his mind will be leaping ahead of them, playing move against countermove and clawing for the advantage.

He goes quietly, then stands there in the centre of the bare room and stares at them each in turn, lips compressed until they whiten. That isn't quite dismay in his eyes as the door closes.

Jack watches critically while the Doctor runs a tender palm over TARDIS walls, willing her to delete the door. She still can, and does, the near-invisible crack around the doorway sealing itself with a whisper of white light, but her pain almost knocks him backwards. It knocks the certainty out of him, and the look he gives Jack is half afraid. An opening. Jack takes it.

"I wasn't kidding." Jack indicates the hidden chamber with a nod. "This is on you. If he pulls any more stunts on Earth, it's on you. I've got your back," he goes on, his loyalty as implacable as his warning. "But I _will_ advise UNIT to shoot that man on sight as a hostile alien lifeform. They know how to take down a Time Lord these days. Believe me." Only in the last phrase is there any hint of regret.

The Doctor's teeth grind together until he smothers his anger, and then he resorts to action, striding away with his hands deep in his pockets. 

 

He's torn out half of the Master's handiwork in the console room before the last of the Archangel energy dissipates and he falls to his knees, feeble as a child. It took him a solar year to weave Archangel through his mind, it filled him with the hope of all humanity, and now that it's gone… He sleeps where he's fallen, his dreams a void.

He wakes up with a pillow beneath his cheek, ribs and kneecaps sore from prolonged contact with the grating, and the chilly awareness that somebody has taken off his shoes. He can feel Jack there, of course; can constantly feel the way causality warps itself around him, bending in ways it just shouldn't. It's like looking too long at an optical illusion, to dwell on Jack with Time Lord senses; you can't unsee it just by looking away, you can never unknow it, and the neon burn-in on the Doctor's unconscious screams _'wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, run away.'_ It's sickening, but it's Jack who put the blanket over him as well. Important to remember that.

"They shot Archangel out of orbit," Jack supplies. He's seated beside the remains of the paradox machine, patiently working loose some connections. "You too by the look of it. You've been out for hours."

"Yeah." The Doctor half sits up and drags a hand down his face, assessing the damage. Disorientation, his mind compensating for the absence of a constant by replacing it with a tone that he pegs at an annoying 1007 Hertz. He's invented psychic tinnitus, and his hangover could be accurately classified under 'apocalyptic', but everything else seems to be present and correct.

Jack must've found his old room. He's clean, shaved, and dressed in stonewashed jeans that the Doctor distinctly remembers him acquiring in 1983. He's brought the IV with him and hung it from the console so he can get to work on the floor.

"Your prisoner has been ranting."

 _'He's not my...'_ But he can't say that to Captain Jack, defender of the Earth. Time was he could say anything to Jack.

"The TARDIS gave me a visual on him, once I made her feel a little better." He half pats, half strokes the edge of the console above him, and the Doctor realises that it's the first of Jack's sleazy lines he's heard in months. Jack held out for a long time, blithely infuriating and laughingly defiant, before the Master finally wore him down to monosyllables and screams. "He hasn't slept. Archangel going down hit him too, though. Got back on his feet about an hour ago, and he's pissed."

Thanks fail on the Doctor's lips. He never really did know where to start, with Jack, or when he started taking this loyal vigilance for granted.

"I'll talk to him," he says, hauling himself up, one uncooperative limb after another. The image on the screen makes his lips twist in distaste; makes him want to look away in cringing shame. He shoves that down and watches the Master, handcuffs dangling from his right wrist, claw at the seamless walls. Reads the words on his spittle-flecked lips.

_'You don't think I've_ tried this? _I'm not broken, you sanctimonious fool! It's real, it's always been rea—'_

"In a bit," the Doctor decides, and leans with his back against the console and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes as if that can erase what he's seen. A thought worms its way through the pounding of his head. "Wait. A visual? How—"

"She's reading him as an imminent threat," Jack says, evenly, though the implication is heavy with reproach: _'So should you be. Are you?'_ "He's not sick, he's not regenerating. He doesn't _need_ a zero room. He needs a prison cell, and you need to be able to watch him so he can't pull any tricks." Jack makes a _voila!_ gesture at the monitor, in complete agreement with the security arrangements.

The Doctor looks around at the shadows of his TARDIS and thinks, _'et tu?'_

Well, it's not as though he thought this was going to be easy.

 

He drops the suit into the waste-disposal, every last stitch, then picks out a blue pinstripe from the wardrobe, and showers until he feels clean enough to wear it. It takes a while, and as he scrubs away the sensation that the bloodshed of this past year is clinging to his skin, the first notion of the new future he's created unfolds in his thoughts. The Doctor and the Master, locked in eternal paradox and shut up together in a box, unobserved.

He can push his consciousness into the fog of the future, if he really tries, but that's so much harder with Jack anywhere nearby, distorting everything. Anyway, the Doctor doubts that he wants to know what comes next. Neither is it among the Master's many gifts to peer beyond what's possible and determine what will be. He honed his mind to a different purpose, rebelling against any unfolding pattern of could-be that doesn't hold him at its exact centre.

The Doctor's carrying a big cardboard box when he returns to the zero room. The TARDIS admits him and then deletes the door again, showing them both one certainty; that the Master is never leaving this room if the Doctor dies in here with him. It limits his options quite a bit.

Sitting with his back to the bare wall, arms draped limply over his knees, the Master has exhausted his rage. His left hand is twisted and bloody where he tore it free of the handcuffs. The Doctor crouches in the middle of the floor, putting the box down between them. The Master's eyes latch on to it for a moment, assessing the possibilities of the contents, then he returns to staring at nothing.

"Your zero room is rubbish."

"Yeah, well." He sits cross-legged, catching himself moving with the same slow care he'd take if faced with a wounded animal. "She's not at her best today. Reconfigured you a barren cell instead." Is that what the Master's become, now? Wounded, well who isn't? Animal? Blood smears the walls, stark proof of the irrational outburst he witnessed earlier. Maybe the only thing worse than madness is madness caged.

"Give me your hands." He digs the medical kit out of the box, but the Master doesn't move. "Please?" He pushes the box aside and scoots nearer, holding out his own hand in expectation. Still staring past his shoulder, the Master lifts his right hand rather than the damaged one, pointedly displaying the dangling handcuffs. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't think. I was knocked out when the effects of the psychic energy wore off. I wouldn't have left you for so long."

The admission earns him a flicker of interest, but one that translates, in the Master's current form, to a hunger in the eyes. It's the hunger for evidence of another's weakness, and the Doctor is discouraged. It takes him a while to pick the lock. When the steel cuffs drop to the floor, the Master yanks his hand away and tucks it against his abdomen, drawing his knees in tighter.

Unexpected, unsolicited, his next words feel like a gift.

"Why doesn't this bucket expel the freak?"

The Doctor understands, but he isn't going to admit that.

"What?"

Probably the Master knows that he's pretending, but he rolls his eyes and plays along, head thumping back against the wall.

"Why doesn't your excuse for a TARDIS react against darling Jack?"

"Because she knows him. I suppose." The Doctor hasn't thought about it, not since Jack rode her through the time vortex to the end of the universe. "She remembers him as he used to be?" It's a question because he doesn't know the answer.

While the Master considers that, the Doctor warily captures his left wrist and, turning back the bloodied cuff, begins to repair the damage. The Master pretends not to notice.

"He wasn't born like that?"

"No." And, because the Master's curiosity revives his own spirits, he says more. "That was my fault. Sort of. An accident. There was this—" The Doctor stops, a breath away from giving him Rose. "Anyway, I tried avoiding him. It didn't work. Running away never does for long."

Okay, admittedly, he walked right into _that_ snort of derision, totally deserves it, but the point is still valid. The Master's eyes focus on him at last, unblinking, unimpressed, and unforgiving. The unresisting weight of his bruised hand in the Doctor's open palm is shockingly real. So alive. Another Time Lord, another child of Gallifrey. Of all the people who might've escaped the Moment, it was _him_. Doctor swallows and tears his gaze away, back to the healing wrist and the soothing green light of the tissue regenerator.

A slow smirk spreads across the Master's tired face. He rests his rigid body against the wall and wiggles his mending fingers experimentally, seeming oblivious to the pain.

"Doctor," he whispers. "You could've ruled an empire by my side."

"I know." He wonders, not for the first time, if the Master's long-term plan is to wear him down a bit at a time, until the sheer combined weight of his own victories crushes him in one ultimate defeat. Just now, that's how it feels; heavy and old and inevitable, and he's sick to death of fighting. "I know."

The Master plucks the instrument from his hand and finishes the job himself. The Doctor joins him against the wall, draws up his own knees, and rests there too, staring at the opposite wall. Forgiveness is all very well, all very tidy, but once you've done that, once you've said it, where do you actually start?

"I'm going to help you," he says. It sounds like a threat more than anything.

The Master pitches the medical device back into the cardboard box with calculated precision. It slips down and gets lost among the clothing and toiletries, dog-eared paperbacks and snacks. Everything the Doctor could think of to make this less of a prison, without actually handing the Master the equivalent of a key to the door.

"Well then," the Master answers, clipped and cutting and just fractionally amused. He puts his hands behind his head and shuts his eyes. "Good luck with that."


	2. Chaos Theory

"He's mad!" Martha's verdict, delivered over a stiff double somewhere in London's West End, has Jack nodding in grim agreement. "He won't be able to turn his back for two minutes! And what happens the first time he gets a distress call from the middle of nowhere? He's just gonna sit there minding his own business? I don't think so! Saving the universe with the Master in tow? He's mental."

Jack sips water and lets her work through it, one underserved slap in the face at a time. He's been there already, and he's said all of this to the Doctor himself. At least Martha didn't have to sit through the big, sad brown eyes and gets him instead. Captain Jack, messenger boy.

"So, he says he'll see you soon." That's the Doctor's message in its entirety, but Jack chooses to elaborate because Martha's past the incredulity and starting to look hurt. "He actually means it." He's unsure how to convey the unspoken things he sensed. Primed as Jack is to the Doctor's habit of leaving his friends behind, he got the feeling that, this time, the intention was to spare Martha's family his presence rather than to avoid Martha herself.

"Mum and Dad," Martha begins, then stops and twirls her glass between her fingers. Jack realises that she's gotten there way faster than he did—past the outrage to the understanding. "They want to thank him. I don't think it's what they need right now. The reminder. Seeing him. He and Mum talked sometimes, when they could. Did you know that?"

Jack shakes his head. Wishes he'd ordered something stronger than iced water with a slice of lime.

"She says there were these days when the Master didn't show his face. Just every once in a while. No-one knew why. I never heard that, down here."

 _Nor me._ Jack's been so busy trying to anticipate the Doctor, to figure him out, he's forgotten what it's like just to listen to someone talk. Someone smart and straightforward who can reach out in trust, and be trusted in return.

"They never talked about anything that mattered. Couldn't risk it. But he told her, kept telling her, that it wasn't her fault. Because she blamed herself, you know? For all of it. The Doctor just kept on telling her that it wasn't her fault, in that voice of his, where he's so sure he's right that you almost believe it yourself. Helping her."

"I'm glad." There are no such moments of respite in Jack's recollections of that year aboard the _Valiant_ , unless you count being dead.

"My family aren't ready to see him again," Martha decides, digging in the pocket of her jacket and bringing out her phone. "I'm not. Tell him that's why I'm not coming to give him a right earful, okay?" She presses the phone into his hand. "I'll call him, and he'd just better not get murdered in his sleep or anything before I do."

Torchwood always has a vacancy for resilience like that, not to mention for the woman who saved the planet, but Jack doesn't mention it now. The Doctor's right, even if he's gone about this all wrong; Martha needs her family right now, and the last thing the Jones family need to deal with is her alien plus-one.

Martha sips her drink, in no hurry to drown her sorrows, and asks the one question Jack hoped to god she wouldn't.

"What about you then?"

 

What about him? Jack couldn't do any better than brush Martha's question aside, complaining lightly about the commute. He's personally moved heaven, earth _and_ UNIT to get the Doctor's incapacitated TARDIS taken to Cardiff for a pitstop instead of to the Tower of London for dissection with extreme prejudice. And what does he get in return? The Doctor cripples his personal teleport, then asks him to go check on Martha Jones. He takes the train home, first class, and sits there trying to figure out which of his fellow travellers are aliens in disguise, which belong to UNIT's not-so-covert observation team, and which he'd have the best chances of taking to bed tonight. He's made a blond blush and his tail change carriages before they reach Swindon, just by smiling to himself.

Torchwood does not, in any sense, fall under the jurisdiction of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, but there has to be some give and take. He wants to monitor Lucy Saxon, and they want to know why the Master hasn't been delivered in handcuffs for a secret trial and cosy dungeon of his very own. Jack's useful to both sides. UNIT inform him, poker-faced, that the Doctor's cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated. He informs them, aggressively charming, that laying hands on the only other surviving member of the Doctor's species would probably be counterproductive to Earth's long-term goals. Survival, for instance.

Privately, he thinks Martha's got it right. The Doctor must be out of his mind to choose now to go it alone. Oh, he's glad Jack's there to help him patch up the TARDIS. Sometimes, he even seems glad that Jack's _there_ , beside him, but only on the mutual understanding that it's temporary. Jack has Torchwood, and the Doctor has... The Doctor has the only other survivor of his species under house-arrest, and wants to save him from himself. So _that's_ healthy.

Jack gets it. In fact, he's sure he gets it better than the Doctor does. Survivor's guilt. Loneliness and the fear of loss. He gets that, and he even gets the compassion and forgiveness, or at least why the Doctor would make the effort. What scares him is that the Doctor is so sure it'll work; that he can bring the Master around this way. UNIT have files on the Master stacked a mile high, and Jack only needed to see a few of them to understand something; this has always been their game. It's high-risk, the stakes are planetary, and there are always multiple casualties. It's who they both are, the Doctor and the Master.

When he gets back to Cardiff, Jack allows himself a pang of regret for not going straight back to Torchwood. Feels disloyal and dishonest. But he can't divide his focus right now, even if it hurts to be this close to home. The biggest threat to any of them is the situation with the Master and, anyway, Jack isn't sure he even knows how to let these two lives of his overlap. The Doctor's mistrust of Torchwood runs too deep, and Jack's friends down there in the Hub are loose cannons, every last one. Complicated. The Doctor doesn't _do_ complicated. Jack actually trusts his team to manage without him. He isn't so sure he can say the same for the Doctor.

The TARDIS is tucked in an alley near the train station, at Jack's own insistence. What it lacks in style it makes up for in utility; he can guard the approaches, and UNIT can keep an unobtrusive sniper watch on the TARDIS. Everybody's happy except the Doctor, who likes to park in the Plass. He says it's for proximity to the Rift, but Jack knows it's mostly about showing off, so he tells the Doctor that next time he needs his ship transported from a top-secret sky-carrier in the middle of a global security crisis, while harbouring the alien threat inside said ship, he can negotiate with UNIT himself.

He can imagine the latest field report even as it's being logged by the unseen observer. _Eleven-oh-five, Captain Harkness effects entry to the TARDIS using his personal key. Appears to be carrying large quantity of fast food._ Earth-shattering material.

The Doctor is standing on the console, on tiptoes, and doing something intricate at the very limit of his upward reach. His ass outlined against a halo of soft lighting is a view Jack could do without.

"Martha says you're a jerk," he says by way of a greeting, dropping the paper bag of food on an open tool box.

"No, she doesn't." The Doctor hops down lightly to the grating and smiles in greeting, reminding Jack why he finds it so hard to stay mad with him. He makes the effort, anyway.

"You are anyway." Jack slaps the mobile Martha gave him down on the console. "Don't lose that. She'll call you." And god help the Doctor if he thinks Martha's going to be one of the ones he leaves behind before she's ready. "She's okay."

"Good. That's good." The Doctor's gaze lingers on the phone for a couple of seconds, then he claps his hands together and descends on the bag of take-out.

Jack's briefly hopeful that the Doctor has an appetite, but the food he grabs is for the prisoner. He should've known.

It warms Jack's heart a little to see the self-proclaimed Master of All getting lukewarm burger and fries for his dinner. Jack watches the live feed, noting that the accommodations have expanded again. The room is still bare-walled, still has a door that only shows up when the Doctor and the TARDIS agree to let it, but the space is larger than before. There's a bunk now, a chair and table, and a wash area that affords the Master no more privacy than the rest of it. Everything in there looks to be extruded from the walls and floor; smooth and white. Seamless. There's nothing to snap off and be fashioned into a weapon; nothing to expose TARDIS technology to prying hands. No bedding. Not even any sharp corners or edges. It's a padded cell without the padding, though Jack's had enough tact not to say as much to the Doctor, who's having enough trouble keeping a decent meal down as it is.

He always comes out of there looking raw, strained or shaken; more than he ever did during this past year while they were at the Master's mercy. This time, sick of being angry and even more sick of seeing defeat in the Doctor's eyes, Jack catches him up in a tight hug the second he gets back.

The Doctor goes rigid with surprise, then assesses the situation and relents, leaning against Jack's body, then squeezing him back with every sign of honest appreciation and generous affection. That's new.

"You got better at this." Jack aims to sound dry, knowing, but winds up with incredulous instead.

"You haven't changed," the Doctor retorts, disentangling himself easily. "All unbelievable teeth and grabby hands." That might be his way of saying he appreciates the gesture. Jack can't tell, but _he_ feels better for reaching out, expressing himself. Feels like he's done nothing but hold back since they were reunited, never sure of the Doctor's shifting boundaries.

Regeneration, Jack gets. New body, new self, but still the sum of all the selves that came before, with a dash of something new and, insofar as he understands the process, completely random. The other Doctor, the one Jack tries hard not to think of as _his_ Doctor, never smiled so easily as this one. Could accept a hug, a kiss, but with an air of tolerant amusement about him—wistful and withdrawn. Either that or any closeness brought out a fierce fire, a smile that was half a challenge, protective and provocative all at once—the spice that made Jack crazy enough about the Doctor to die for him.

Hey, it's not as if the thought didn't count. And he did something else because of the Doctor; he changed. Not for him, but all _because_ of him and Rose, with the Doctor's hand cool and sure in his, leading him through the first steps back from the chaos his life had become. Jack's always thought that learning the truth about why he got left behind on the Game Station would put everything right, but he never expected this. Rose gone. A new Doctor, who's simultaneously more approachable and more remote; more open, except when he isn't. More forgiving, except of the one thing Jack can't change and would never have chosen for himself.

"Hungry?" Jack gestures at the bag of food, before the Doctor can throw himself back into rebuilding his TARDIS. He's unsurprised by the grim little shake of the head, but the nervous fidget of the Doctor's hands grabs his attention, hard. He's never seen this Doctor at a loss and willing to show it. Isn't used to the little invitations and openings. "How'd he like his dinner?"

The Doctor glances at the monitor, at the Master sitting with his back to them, picking over the meal. He's putting some of it in his mouth, but the rest gets picked apart into tiny pieces and abandoned in its wrappings. The Master works at this with all the exaggerated meticulousness of a madman turned inward, and Jack can't tell if it's real or if he's faking it for the effect it'll have on the Doctor.

"Still won't say a word. That's really not like him." The Doctor leans against the railing, spreading his arms along the metal and gripping tight. "He wasn't always like this. Yes, he craved power and tried to take it, and his plans were always a bit on the comic-book side of super-villainy, but he was rational. Perfectly, brilliantly rational."

That's the most Jack's heard him say in over a year. He listens with care, observing every nuance of the Doctor's posture, body language and mood. Not loving that he speaks about the Master with something that sounds a lot like wistful admiration.

"You sound like this isn't even supposed to happen. A crazy Time Lord."

"It isn't!" Throwing up his hands, jerking himself away from the railing, the Doctor looks for something in the repairs to keep himself busy. But he doesn't have the focus, and winds up running his hands over exposed wiring. Fidgeting. "We're not _born_ Time Lords, that's _earned_. Even my people weren't arrogant enough to hand the keys to the universe to the mentally unstable! There were tests. Checks. Sanctions. He passed them _all_. And they brought him back, for the War, even knowing what he'd done, they brought him back as a _weapon_ and I didn't even see what that did to him. I thought he'd died with the rest! But what if I'd found him earlier? What if I'd thought to look?"

Jack's been standing ready for this ever since they brought the Master on board. There's a lot about this new Doctor that he doesn't know or understand, but he knows this; that anyone can try too hard to stay strong. That the old Doctor, the one whose face has haunted his dreams for over a century, was fresh enough from a warzone to remember that. To know when he needed somebody to catch him. The Doctor hasn't let himself stop long enough to deal, and Jack's glad he's there when the events of the past year catch up with him. Who should be alone with that?

He goes and grips the slender shoulders. He chose his moment, right as the Doctor's voice began to crack with horror at how exposed he's becoming, and just hopes that touch still feels like an anchor in the darkness.

"Okay," Jack says. Not soothing or promising; just acknowledging. "Okay."

The Doctor looks as if he's forgotten what this is, this permission to stop being strong. Jack tracks his confusion in his rapid-fire fleeting expressions; anger, shame, uncertainty, fear, and lastly naked vulnerability, almost pleading. That's the one Jack knows from way back, from when the Doctor was blue eyes and hard lines and half broken. That look.

Jack isn't who he was then, either. He has no ulterior motive for drawing the Doctor close again, gentle and slow this time, making sure it's on the other man's terms. Feels good though, permission to hold on tight and feel another body close with his. When tears sting his eyes in answer to the Doctor's near-silent struggle for self-control, it's not all from empathy. Feels good when the Doctor squeezes him tight. He's stronger than he looks, bunched fists digging hard into Jack's back.

Doesn't take him long to regroup. When does it ever? Jack loosens his arms, hands lingering as the Doctor straightens, bleary-eyed and self-conscious. Thanks go unspoken; half a nod, hands squeezing Jack's elbows. Too moved to speak, or too ashamed; Jack can't tell. Doesn't matter. Never did.

"I'll take watch," he offers, nodding to the monitor. "Go get some proper rest."

"No." The Doctor pulls away, burying the fingers of one hand in his unruly hair. Jack takes a breath, ready to argue the point until he wins, but then the Doctor's other hand catches hold of his. Just lightly. "Come with me?"

It takes Jack a long few seconds to grasp his meaning. Seriously, if it was anyone but the Doctor... But it is the Doctor, eyebrows raised in invitation, a certain amused curiosity lifting his heavy fatigue.

Mouth dry, Jack nods. Takes a step towards him. Stops before he stumbles over his own feet.

"Uh."

"Turning me down, Jack?"

"No." _Hell_ no. He doesn't care if this is the Doctor's idea of pity... reward... punishment. Doesn't care if the Doctor wants to shag himself to sleep, leave him wanting and wondering. Doesn't care. "Speechless." He lets himself be tugged by the hand, following in a fascinated daze. The Doctor never used to be this way. Everything was raw, brutally honest between them, a hard, silent negotiation of need and reciprocation. Moments seized, always terrified they'd get away. Never a word spoken about it and none required. This really is a different man who leads him by the hand, weary steps unhurried, his invitation blossoming between them in the silence.

He doesn't recognise the room where they end up, but doesn't think it's where the Doctor comes to sleep. Too neat, too impersonal for a man so engaged with the universe around him. A room, a door, a bed. It's all that really matters right now, though Jack wonders if they have the TARDIS to thank for the warm mood-lighting that comes mostly from the walls. It's soothing more than it's sensual, and then it's irrelevant because the Doctor lets go of his hand, faces him and, wordless, starts undoing his tie. Jack just stares, caught completely unawares. If you spend long enough wanting something it stops being real; it becomes a kind of comforting lie or a waking dream. The whisper of silk over silk makes it real and tantalising. Jack realises, when the Doctor pops the button at his collar and exposes a bare inch of skin, that he's staring with his mouth half open.

He pulls himself together and goes in for a kiss; shouldn't be surprised that it's so different, but he is. The Doctor yields softly, keeping it light. No hurry, no demand, though he grips the back of Jack's head and keeps him where he wants him. No dragging the clothes off each other's backs, no clawing for the nearest horizontal or vertical surface to take their combined weight. New man, Jack figures, new everything, and gives himself over to learning how the Doctor tastes and feels. Slow.

It's like kissing a stranger, and Jack ought to know. Except that it isn't that, not quite. It's old fondness overlaid on new men, a little wistful and a little sad for that long-dead familiarity. It's regrets and could-have-beens, and Jack knows before they even lie down that it's goodbye. He's just not sure if it's the one he's owed or the one that's coming.

It's kisses that get more and more lazy, more drowsy between them, and neither of them is ever fully hard. It's hands more curious than they are greedy, exploring bare skin to the waist, then cloth below. It's trying his lips against the old, reliable spot where the Doctor's neck meets his shoulder and finding that it makes him squirm now, laugh out loud, and fidget when it was unbearable before. Could break him. Makes Jack glad, as he stores up tactile memories for a future without the Doctor in it, that time mends even the likes of them.

At last, for the Doctor, it's real sleep in a proper bed, spark out between one lazy exchange of caresses and the next. If it took all that to get him to this point, Jack's fine with that. He gets to study the man's face without that riot of expressions yanking his emotional responses in every known direction. He gets to hold the Doctor's body close, without one of them being in the process of falling apart or getting put back together.

Jack plans on staying awake, enjoying the moment and then not having to wake up to find the Doctor gone, but winds up sleeping anyway. The Doctor isn't gone when he wakes up; he's just lying there to Jack's left with one hand behind his head, the other breaking the spine of a worn-out paperback. Reading glasses sit crooked on his nose, nerdy-chic and hot as hell.

"You look, uh, better this morning." It's the best he can do as he takes in the rest of it. The dark t-shirt covers most of the Doctor's skin again, but his arms are still bare, and his feet. He wiggles his toes while he reads.

"Much better." The Doctor beams at him and Jack almost buys it wholesale. "Nice nap, cup of tea." He sounds excited. About tea. Jack falls back against the pillow and blinks until he's more awake. Two mugs of tea, he notes, sitting on bedside tables that weren't there when they tumbled into bed together.

Jack laughs to himself, tangled for a few seconds in the incongruity, in the dual perception of the Doctor, then deciding he'd better just go with it.

"You really are a new man, aren't you?"

"Yep. New hair, new teeth, new everything. New taste buds." The Doctor turns a page, meticulously refolding the tortured spine of the book. "Imagine that. There you are, minding your own beeswax, doing the best you can, saving the world, and you wake up hating pears and actually _liking_ Jackie Tyler's tea."

"And doing mornings-after," Jack angles, because he's not quite going to buy _that_ until he knows a reason why.

"Ah." Tossing the book to the foot of the bed, the Doctor pulls off the black-rimmed glasses and tosses those too, turning to sit facing him, cross-legged. "That's me not being rude. People say I'm rude. I don't mean to be. On my planet, social etiquette changed once in a geological epoch, not every five minutes."

Home. Past tense, no visible anguish. Jack takes that in and nods, sitting up.

"Effort appreciated."

Another beaming smile, too bright and not perfectly real. Jack begins to get it; get what last night was about.

"Since we're doing honesty hour, answer me this," he prods, reaching for the mug of cold tea. "What you said last night. About no crazy Time Lords, about the vetting process. Didn't they maybe think something was a little off when he started calling himself 'the Master'?"

 _There_ it is. The wan excuse for a smile. Unshaven, it makes the Doctor look even older.

"You underestimate the pretension of my species," he replies, with faux-solemn dignity and a twinkle in his eyes that he quite deliberately puts there.

Jack thinks about hitting him with a pillow, but this isn't some lazy Sunday morning-after with some casual date. This is fate of the universe stuff, and the Doctor may very well be the most important person who ever lived.

"If you can't cure him," he insists, leaning forwards over the mug. "If you can't help him. Can you live with what he's become?" _'Can you look at that nightmare every day for the rest of eternity and not run away, like you ran from me?'_

"I can help him. Soon as he lets me try. I promise."

"Doctor..."

"Jack." The Doctor leans closer and kisses his mouth, first a press of dry lips to silence him, then a sweep of tongue to distract him, and Jack understands exactly how far the man's prepared to go to get the universe functioning on his own terms. He ends the kiss by thrusting the mug of tea into the Doctor's hands and letting his reflexes do the rest. Before the Doctor's righted the mug to avoid a spill in their laps, Jack is on his feet and groping for his shirt.

"Gotcha," he says, too stung to stay and deal with this now. And _dammit_ , but he can't leave the Doctor like this or it'll just be like it's always been with Torchwood; his focus divided, his loyalty impersonal, and his friends always wondering what makes him so goddamned hard on them. His unfinished business risking all their lives. _Dammit!_ "Etiquette tip, Doctor. _Big_ one. Don't ever kiss me again unless you mean it."

"Gotcha," the Doctor echoes slowly, warily. Jack can't even tell if his bemusement is real or fake. Not that the old Doctor didn't drive him _crazy_ sometimes, but he wasn't that hard to read. New man. New everything.

"I need to touch base with Torchwood," he says, leaving. "Mend some fences. Then I'm coming back." He hadn't told the Doctor he was leaving yet, so that doesn't have as much impact as it could've. The Doctor just nods, still watching him with that total absence of understanding.

 

On his way out, Jack stops at the console and turns the monitor towards him for a look at the prisoner. Since they brought him aboard, the Master has spent a lot of time just sitting with his back to one of the walls, his expression ranging from homicidal to vacant while his hand beats out a rhythm against his knee. Today, he's smiling to himself and his hands are perfectly still. As Jack watches, the Master laces his fingers together and stretches out his arms in front, luxuriously, looking like he's the only one who gets the joke. Or like he knows that even stuck in a cell, the rippling consequences of his actions still shape all of their lives. 

"Yeah? We'll see about that." 

Jack hits the screen with the heel of his hand, knocking it aside, and steps outside the TARDIS for some fresh air.


	3. Scientific Method

One thing he's learned from the Doctor; silence is a weapon in captivity. If you speak at all, use words to deflect, misdirect or sow doubt. Best not to speak, though. Conserve your energy, bide your time. Wait for your opponent to make their mistake.

That's where the Master loses the thread of the Doctor's reasoning. He's always sure, so sure, that he can wait for that moment of hesitation, that fatal flaw; that he can create the moment if he needs to. The Doctor has a mastery of individual weakness. An eye for it, you might say; the discernment of a connoisseur of folly, and the patience of a rock. And all of it's a lie. Like his forgiveness.

His protection is another matter, an insult that can be swallowed in the name of expediency. The human race is so heavily armed, these days, and their communications technology so perilously efficient. Cameras everywhere, and the Master made his current face so very well known across Planet Earth. Makes his hands itch to remember pressing all that human flesh; too warm, too wet, too _dying_. The interviews, the smiling. The easy banality of soundbite, spin, slogan and sincerity. He can wear sincerity like a pair of gloves, flexible and all-concealing. Hardly even needed Archangel in those early days, when Harold Saxon could change a mind merely by smiling in the right way at the right moment. That was the Doctor's doing—great gaping wound in causality where one Harriet Jones should've stood, presiding over the resurgence of her tiny island nation and the rise of her tiny world. A power vacuum, practically an invitation to invasion. The Doctor never used to sail so close to the wind, and the Master wonders what happened to him.

No, he knows what happened. Doesn't know the how, the when, the where, the precise _why_. What turned the Doctor from a maverick into a tyrant? Gallifrey? Makes his mouth turn dry to think of it, the Doctor's hand trembling as he reaches for... what would it be? A lever, a lock, a switch... no, a _button_. A big, red button. The Doctor's hand shakes with guilt and grief and self-importance, and then he brings the entire weight of his being to bear on the Time War, ending it. Ending them all, countless billions of lives snuffed out in one act that he probably thinks of as honest martyrdom.

The Master lets go his breath, shivering and licking his lips as those solid images evaporate and leave the air feeling too thin. Try as he might, he can't picture the face. Which face? Not this one, not this lanky creature, all limbs and ghastly affectations. He never would, the coward. He'd claw his beating hearts from his breast first. Which then? The warrior, the one who blanked him in an effort to afford him all due respect as a fellow defender of Gallifrey? Strange eyes, that one, always looking at you but still looking elsewhere. Wouldn't answer to 'Doctor', like that meant it didn't count each time the high command tallied up his kills, his paradoxes, his abominations. That one, or another? How old _is_ he, now? He'd never say. Not that whole year, not with his body artificially manipulated to look all of a thousand years wrinkly. How many regenerations does the Doctor have left?

Startling thought, that this boyish façade might be his last. What a joke.

The Master sincerely hopes that the daily routine is killing the Doctor by inches, by its sheer, galling mundanity. This TARDIS bends itself to human frailty, to a diurnal cycle that's broadly the same as that of Earth. God knows why, when the only human inside it is the Torchwood freak, who barely needs more sleep than either of the Time Lords. That's the Doctor for you, though. His whimsy always was dangerously infectious, and he's had centuries to corrupt this TARDIS to his inanities.

So, breakfast time—let's call it 07:00—is the Doctor, casual in a t-shirt and barefoot, bringing in a bowl of something insipid and a cup of coffee. Decaffeinated, that's a nice touch. Makes the Master tempted to ask for a single malt and a cigarette, just to see the look of schoolteacher disapproval on the Doctor's face. That seems to be the plan here; to make this bare room his world and then make that world so bland, so boring, so utterly uninspiring that he eventually begs for mercy. For companionship. For the Doctor to hold his hand and make everything better.

He's on the verge of begging for toast, he'll admit that. Anything with flavour or texture to speak of.

"Here we are then." The Doctor places the plastic bowl and spoon on the table with a flourish, like he thinks he's done something clever. "Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!"

"The chance would be a fine thing." He says it just to shock, to toss a small hand-grenade of guilt into the Doctor's apparently sunny morning, and because if he's forced to subsist on the children's menu for much longer, there's a real possibility that he'll gnaw his own leg off.

Breaking his silence feels too good, a cathartic rush of relief and pleasure. Irritated by finding himself inferior to the Doctor in the most pointless and stupid of ways, he turns to face the wall, scowling.

"Almost finished the repairs." The Doctor stands too near him, speaking quietly. "This isn't forever. We can go anywhere. Just you and me."

It already feels like forever, and he might just gag on the proximity of so much do-gooder sentiment. He hugs himself, fingers digging hard into the flesh of opposite arms, because it's that or slam the Doctor against the wall and snap his spine.

"You and me," he grates, despising his weakness but despising the Doctor's more. "And Jack makes three? Aww."

"I..." He doesn't even deny it. As if he could. Nothing leaves its imprint like a human being, all chaotic potential and driving instinct. Nothing tears at the web of time, nothing _stinks_ , like an artificial fixed point. Harkness is both, and he's all over the Doctor's signature this morning like cheap perfume and bar smoke. How desperate can you get? "He's owed," the Doctor finishes, sounding more confident than he's any right to. "He can go wherever he likes."

"Clearly."

That gets rid of the Doctor, for now. Fascinating, this voluntary symbiosis he's entered into with his time capsule. A TARDIS was never intended to be anything but utilitarian. A machine, when all's said and done; power source and programming inside an exquisite shell of dimensional engineering. It's arguably alive, but not supposed to develop a mind of its own—a will, or moods, or ideas. So, is it the Doctor's will that the door is deleted behind him as he leaves, or is it the TARDIS itself? As prison cells go, one without a door is... remarkably efficient.

The Master stands over the table and tries to work out what he's expected to eat this time. Processed starches coated in chocolate powder, all getting nicely soggy in a lake of bovine mammary secretion. _Yum_.

Silence isn't a viable strategy, then. Not with Harkness here to whisper in the Doctor's ear, probably making the case for a swift execution. The Doctor never would, never, but the freak just might. The reports on Torchwood stretch way back into Earth's recent history, and too many of them are littered with Captain Jack's burning bridges. He's a known unknown, a lethal variable, which is precisely why he spent a year chained up on the _Valiant_ , out of harm's way. It was that or bury him in concrete.

Coffee. The Master paces the length of the room, alternately sipping the bitter liquid and tearing bits off the cardboard sleeve around the disposable cup. He makes the relative excitement last, and wonders if the Doctor even knows or cares that this calculated absence of stimulation amounts to torture.

 

The next hours eat at him, sapping his will. There were weapons, once, that functioned by slowing an individual's perception of the passage of personal time. Torture. That's what this is to the Master, whose subjective and objective perceptions of the external are always _this_ close to being drowned out by the drumbeat inside his skull. Once he goes there, there's no coming back. So... so... Distract, redirect, take control; measure out the moments by letting each experience consume him and measuring _that_. Make enough noise to drown it out, that's the only way, and now he can't. Can't leech enough stimulation from this barren environment to keep the rhythm at bay.

Sometimes, he's only silent when the Doctor visits him because he's incapable of speaking at all. Won't give him the satisfaction of screaming.

 

Call it noon, now. 12:00 hours. Lunchtime. The Doctor delivers a salad with hard boiled eggs, and tuts over the untouched bowl of breakfast. He fills the room with the fragrance of pine soap and fresh laundry detergent, but the Master is too tired to grasp the new sensations and use them to pull himself back. He wants to bend forward and retch, but bites down on his tongue instead. Hard. Tastes iron, savours the sharp pain as something he alone can control. It's bad today, really bad, his head, the noise, but the Doctor's used to him sitting like this; back to the wall, arms folded on flexed knees, head turned in an attitude of avoidance or dismissal. He doesn't notice a difference, or if he notices then he doesn't say, and the Master hates him utterly for leaving without a word.

 

Call it evening. England will be in twilight, commuters churning out pollution that turns their mucous membranes black. Harry Saxon rides a bicycle through London, never mindful of his personal security. A man of the people, and the people all his because of Archangel. He's loved and lauded wherever he goes, be it traffic jam, pub or lecture hall, and sometimes he thinks this is how it would feel to be the Doctor. It has a certain thrill, like stealing something when you're five years old, a time-tot who already knows about consequences. About winning.

Evening then. It's not the lights that change at this hour, inside the TARDIS, but the sounds. Systems switch to self-maintenance, ready for the lone pilot to be at his leisure, and seem almost tuned to create a soothing harmonic. Soothing to a Time Lord, anyway. It'd set a human on edge, surely, that infrasonic thrum? The Master remembers that this TARDIS is in repairs, half converted from his clever paradox machine back into a time capsule, and makes the most of the calming vibration while it lasts. Maybe it's a Doctored capsule's way of driving out the freak, like vermin. It can't like being near Harkness any more than a Time Lord can. Which makes you wonder what the Doctor thinks he's playing at, getting even closer. What is that? Masochism?

He's on the floor. No, the bed. Feels identical, smooth and always the same temperature. Just right. The only difference is psychological. You sleep on a bed if you're not an animal. You lie down on a bed. Because you're not an animal.

He's on the bed, cheek and palms pressed to the white warmth. Perfect body temperature, the surface yielding to the pressure-points of hip, knee and ankle. Almost comfortable, but sleep doesn't come. He doesn't bother to pretend, though he knows they watch him; the TARDIS can relay his biodata as well as his image, and the game of fooling the sensors bored him by day two.

Evening, was it? Or night now, because the lights are lower. Home to Chelsea then, home to Lucy. She loves hearing his plans while he lounges against her, her fingertips massaging circles against his temples as he tells her what he's going to do to her planet, and how, and why. She doesn't understand, not really, so he can tell her as often as he likes, for the distraction of it. For the momentary relief of those warm fingers, always circling in counterpoint to the incessant rhythm in his skull. Can she hear it too?

"Master." He jerks out of pleasant remembrance, the Doctor's hand on his back as good as a jolt of electricity. His name on the Doctor's lips as good as it gets. "Are you all right?" He sounds concerned, but that's not saying much. He'd tear up if he found a bird with a broken wing. "Can you hear me?"

It takes everything he's got to answer. Everything.

"Unfortunately."

The hand is withdrawn, respectful of his person. That always makes him laugh, or it would, if he could. He can't move, like he's been drugged somehow, poisoned, but that can't be right. Nothing in the air or he'd have noticed. Nothing in that lukewarm coffee, not even caffeine. Besides, as he's already noted, the Doctor respects his person.

"You really don't look well."

When he doesn't answer—can't—the Doctor waves that stupid screwdriver about for a while, bringing it too near the Master's right eardrum for comfort.

"Is he bleeding?" That's the freak asking, two point five metres from the foot of the bunk. Doorway then. Open door. Weapon? No. Escape? No.

The Doctor sits behind him and lays a palm across his forehead, impersonal. Feels cool, which feels odd. Turns his head slightly with insistent pressure, then puts him back just how he was and withdraws again.

"No, he's only bitten his tongue. This could be anything, but it shouldn't be. His immunity's the same as mine. He could fight off anything Earth can throw at him and he hasn't been anywhere else."

"Faking?" Professional cynic, Harkness comes over for closer look. The Master pulls in his knees and bites his tongue again to keep from making a sound.

"No, he isn't. And, Jack, you're not helping. Sorry, but..."

"Oh, right." Toneless, Harkness moves away again. "I forgot, I'm all 'wrong' to you guys."

"Temporally speaking, temporally speaking. Keep your hair on, Captain, he's hardly in any state to re-evaluate his prejudices at the moment. Get me a medical kit, would you?"

The hand comes back as the walking anomaly moves away, and this time the Doctor projects a passive coolness with his entire being. He'd bristle at the intrusion, the insolence, but it buys him so much clarity, so much control. His whole body seems to relent at once, locked muscle loosening, and he presses his forehead more firmly against the Doctor's fingers for the relief it brings.

"How can you even look at him, let alone t..." Not enough air in his lungs for a full sentence, so he finishes on a cough, heaving in oxygen against the deficit and trying to lash out in frustration and humiliation. His heel impacts something soft, somewhere behind him, but it isn't anything that makes the Doctor yelp with pain. "You're disgusting."

"The Captain has an interesting perspective on that. Ask him, sometime." Tone's light, but his mood is anything but. Never does know what psychic treasure he's giving away through a casual touch, does he? So much anger in him, always at war with that self-righteous self-flagellation. "We've got a lot to learn from humans. Swallow your pride."

There's a perfect opening for a really cutting remark, but he's too tired to bother.

The simple touch erodes the pain, enough to make it recognisable as such. A throb between the temples, agony on a double heartbeat, over and over, but contained again. A visible, measurable enemy to flank, outwit, defeat. The Master lets it happen, revolted. Grateful. Revolted that he's grateful to anyone, let alone the Doctor.

"I didn't know it hurt like this."

That's it. All the Doctoring he can stand. He grabs the man's wrist and thrusts the hand away from his forehead.

"You never asked."

Harkness delivers the medical kit and withdraws. A silent sign from the Doctor, get lost, or is he just that well house-trained?

"Tell me something?" The Doctor rummages in the kit, still making his voice light like that. Like they're barely acquainted, like he can't decide what's at stake.

"Will you go away if I do?"

"Probably."

"Quid pro quo, then."

"Fine," the Doctor agrees, but wary, his deeper tone warning, 'up to a point'. "You first."

"Regeneration?"

"Last." It's automatic, the strategic lying. The Doctor doesn't even mean it, just does it. Doesn't expect to be believed, but that doesn't matter. The Master has as much of the truth as he needs. _Not_ his last. Lives to spare yet.

He nods, more relieved than he should be.

The Doctor runs a handheld scanner over him, head to toe then back again. The resulting readout distracts him for a moment.

"Your turn."

"Oh, right. Sorry. Really, though, have you been eating at all? Not just since you've been here, I mean—"

"Is this the question?"

"No." Still again, the Doctor becomes a calming presence. "Your ring. The wedding ring. Why wear it now?" The Master curls the fingers of his left hand, feeling the way the plain gold presses between his fingers. To his embarrassment, the question intrigues him. "Why marry her? Why Lucy in particular, I mean?"

"That's two questions. You forfeit your go. Am I going to live?"

"You usually do." The Doctor fiddles again, then reaches over him brandishing a hypospray. "Help you sleep." Rather than launch an assault with it, he places it beside the Master's unmoving hand. "When you need it." The Master nods, curtly. "Aren't you going to ask what's in it?"

No. No, he isn't. That's the thing about the Doctor. There are ways in which he's entirely predictable; totally trustworthy, and one of those is that any attempt to help, however saccharine and self-important in motivation, is well-meant. First, do no harm. Then there's the fact that he wouldn't hand over a weapon of any sort, so the drug isn't one that will knock down a Time Lord, or even temporarily remove Harkness from the mortal sphere. Anything less potent, a Time Lord can probably resist at will, so it'll only incapacitate him if and when he chooses to let it.

Sometimes, in some ways, he knows the Doctor completely. Most of all, he knows that his silence cuts deep and sows doubt, and even if he doesn't have the Doctor's knack for prolonging it, he can still use silence to be cruel.

"Fine." Patient as only a martyr can be, the Doctor snaps shut the medical kit and stands. "I think you actually cared about Lucy," he says, as easily as he might mention the weather. "At first, maybe, when it was all fresh and exciting. Or after a while, when you found you weren't so alone with her there beside you, and that not being alone is better. I think you came to hate her for that, but you still want to remember having it. That's why you haven't taken off the ring."

 _'Bastard'._ He breaches another wall of silence with a single word, a mental projection that will hit the Doctor like a hammer blow. This isn't just their personal silence—this is the silence of their entire species, the lost background noise of home, belonging, identity. Being Gallifreyan, being Time Lord. Being _alive_. Neither of them dared open the floodgates, not in that entire year, although he felt the Doctor reaching out in invitation on the empathic level; pathetic pleading, guilt and pity and such pitiful, abject need. Now he dumps all his resentment into the word, an appropriate Earth word that Harry Saxon rather liked, and has the satisfaction of hearing the Doctor stumble into the wall, gasping as his rusty mental shields shatter on impact.

The Master shuts his own mind against the backwash of emotion and shock, and shuts his eyes, and smiles at the bare wall opposite while he presses the hypospray to his arm.

"Night then, Doctor."


	4. Convergence

He can already hear the heavy tread of the Captain's sprint from the console room. Jack to the rescue, while the Doctor slides gently down the wall and sits in a graceless heap, the width of a wall between himself and the Master. Not that the wall would make a difference if the Master felt like following up that petty blow with a real assault on his mind. Wrong sort of wall. Should've seen it coming, been better prepared, but he's spent a year devoting all his effort to making his mind permeable to the Archangel network, to becoming a wide-open receiver, and apparently not enough time battening down the hatches afterwards.

He's sitting with the heels of his hands jammed into his eye sockets when Jack gets to him, averting panic with exercises he learned in the nursery. Mental defences, it really is like building a wall. A wall of infinitesimally fine layers, each one flexible and strong, because it can't be rigid. That was his mistake; a rigid, immutable wall around his mind that could keep out pretty much anything in the universe, except one of his own. Except _him_. The Master could probably have killed him outright, if he'd really tried.

Warning shot, then. Could've been worse.

Jack talks at him, interrogating the situation, not sure whether to pick him up off the floor or go looking for a weapon.

"He didn't touch you, I swear he didn't move, but it looked like you got hit with a lead pipe. What the hell happened?"

"It's okay, I'm fine." More or less. "Stand down, Captain. I walked into that."

"Into what?" Jack grabs his elbow and pulls, ineffectually as it turns out. The Doctor can't help flinching from the touch, the nearness of Jack in all his eye-popping wrongness, when his mind is wide open to the universe. He tries to push himself up but his legs aren't having any of that.

"Just give me a minute."

Jack squats, furious with him and fussing over him at the same time.

"He did this? How?"

"Telepathic contact. Bit unexpected." The truth works better than evasion, with Jack. Understanding enough about touch-telepathy and mental defences, alert enough to recognise that he's touching one hell of a raw nerve, Jack backs off, holding up his hands in mute apology. Sometimes the Doctor misses being able to explain everything he's thinking to a captivated companion. Other times he wishes they were all like Jack, all this easy. He shuts his eyes and concentrates on restoring the onion-layers of protection around his shell-shocked mind.

Nursery stuff, it really is. You sit on the mat with a partner, not touching, playing a clumsy game of catch with simple word-thoughts. The docent touches one of you on the head, silent, and your role becomes that of defender. Defend against the thoughts that are not your own—against Apple, Ball, Cow, Dog and Elephant. Something like that, anyway. Words in Gallifreyan can take a year to pronounce, a star chart to spell out. You start shielding your mind before you have enough language even to explain what it is you're doing, and then you never stop. Every glance from then on, every accidental brush and nudge in passing, every conscious touch, you're defending the integrity of your own consciousness and possibly, if you're clever and half-awakened to how old and how unquestioned these rituals must be, you start to wonder what you're missing, and if anyone was meant to be this alone.

By the age of eight, your mind's a fortress. They test you over and over, a telepathic beating that you resist without a single blow landing. Only then, only once they're certain of your discipline, do they present you with the robes of an Initiate. Only then do they lead you out in the darkness by torchlight to stand before the Untempered Schism and try your luck with eternity. It screams through your shielding in a way they never prepared you for. It shreds you as it shows you that you are insignificant. It marks you forever, and from that moment on you contain all possibility. You're attuned to the vortex, just enough to feel the pull of its tides and intuit the vastness of its power.

Once something's found its way into your mind, there's always a path. Once you've _allowed_ something into your mind, it will always know the way.

"Doctor?" Jack—gentle, wary. Concerned. Not standing too close, bless him, and for what it's worth he's shielding his human mind like a trouper. "You still with me?"

"Yeah." Like Torchwood, the Doctor's never been sure what to think about the Time Agents and their shadowy Agency. They send their people out well-equipped, you can say that for them. Jack can hold his own against a mind probe, a truth serum. Even a battle formation of Daleks. Exposure to the Cardiff Rift accounts for some of the disquieting distortion around him; time travel with a vortex manipulator for some of the rest. If a Time Lord's passage leaves a wound in time then a Time Agent's leaves it bleeding and begging for its mummy. It all heals, but once you've looked into the Schism, you can always recognise the scar tissue.

"Doctor!" Hands-on, this time. Jack catches him by the shoulders when he starts to topple forwards. He's careful not to touch skin, and he keeps his mind shut like a clamshell. Crude, compared to the onion-skin approach, but it works.

"I'm fine."

"The hell you are."

"Really." The Doctor reminds himself how eyelids work and opens his eyes. "Disoriented, that's all." They don't teach you that when you're a time-tot, either; that if you're not careful, you could go on looking ever inward, oblivious to the external, until you forget how to do anything but shy away from life. Explains a lot about his people, that. "Gimme a hand." Jack still avoids his bare skin, hauling him awkwardly to his feet by one forearm, then catching him across the back to steady him the rest of the way. Props him against the wall and falls back, uncertain of what to do. "Thanks," the Doctor says, more in kindness than gratitude. Jack's afraid.

Once, in a different body and against his better judgement, he looked into Jack's mind. Two years of missing time—how could he resist that challenge? There was nothing there to find, just the absence of memory that Jack had identified all on his own. But it hurt to try, to expose even a fraction of his psyche to the silence of the universe without the Time Lords in it. He never tried reaching out again, not until Rose was dying with the vortex inside her, and that time it killed him. That time, he was glad to go.

"He built Archangel and you tuned yourself to it," Jack deduces, frustrated. "Could he have gotten to you if he'd figured that out? Could he have controlled you?"

The Doctor swallows, looking for a way not to answer, but there isn't one.

"Maybe." He points a warning finger at the Captain's chest. "I didn't see anyone coming up with a better plan, so leave it." The anger, it comes so easily since the _Valiant_. He didn't have time for it then—shoved it down and down inside him while the Master ravaged everything he holds dear. Shoved it down and forgave him for Japan, for the Toclafane, for Martha and for Jack. Over and over again for Jack. He counted on a near certainty; that no Time Lord would consider the possibility that another would ever lay his mind wide open to anything. The Master didn't. He's more of a stickler than the Doctor's ever been for the discipline of their training. He devised Archangel to work one way, a trickle-down effect. A broadcast, active, spreading himself so thin as to be undetectable. He wasn't capable of considering that humanity could act together and push the signal back to a single, open, passive receiver. You can't explain that certainty to a human, not even to Jack, so he doesn't try, but he can't be silent. "Yes, it could have gone wrong." Oh, so many ways. The Master could have found Martha, or killed him at any time, or destroyed the planet in a fit of insanity before he got anywhere near his precious countdown. "There was no other way."

Jack begins to look sullen, suppressing anger of his own, but he's older and wiser than that now. A moment later, he lets go.

"You could've let me kill him before any of it happened," Jack snarls, taking a step closer. "I know why you didn't, hell, I admire you for it, but don't ever forget what that decision cost. What the courage of your convictions cost Martha, and _everyone_ aboard that ship who has to remember the Earth burning. There _was_ another way. You chose to save the Master's life instead. You chose this!" Jack flings his arms wide, encompassing the hidden room, the Master, the TARDIS and the mess they've left outside her doors. "Don't tell me there was no other way. Just don't."

The Master tortured Jack. To death and back again, over and over. Just for sport, for the show, because it fascinated or amused him. Just to make a point or to punish the Doctor for his silence. Just because Jack can't die, because he stands as an affront to everything the great civilisation of Time Lords held to be true and right. Just because he could, and because he's so broken that he finds some ugly catharsis in breaking others. The Doctor takes that knowledge and walls up his anger behind it, limiting himself to a look at Jack that says, 'you and whose army?' Just in case.

Jack didn't kill the Master there on the tarmac, though. No-one was stopping him. No, he obeyed orders and left it alone, trusting that the Doctor had a better plan. Trusting _him_. Jack spent a year in chains because it went wrong, and Martha... oh, just look at what he's gone and done to Martha Jones.

His head hurts. The Doctor nods at Jack and walks away, controlling his anger so hard that he's shaking in his shoes.

Meditation. That's what he needs. It's not easy in a body that seems hard-wired for action, but that's how it's done. The onion-layers. Conscious and careful. It's a skill he's neglected for too long. The Master knew it, too. Even now, half out of his mind with whatever afflicts him, the Master's basic discipline is second to none. He never abandoned himself to a reckless indifference, deciding to take life as it comes. Whenever he broke a gilded rule the decision was as conscious, careful and precise as when he obeyed one to the letter. The fire of rebellion in the Master burned cold and clear as starlight. Discipline comes easily to a mind like that.

For the Doctor, it's more like herding cats. Back to the nursery, then. Cross-legged on the floor in a darkened room, slowly, slowly getting his psychic house in order. Bit overgrown, his mind. Bit cluttered, and more 'eccentric old mansion' than 'impregnable fortress'. Time to tidy the place up a bit. One mess at a time. He breathes in. Breathes out. Turns inward to where he's completely alone.

 

_You're a child among many and nobody ever says your name. That's yours to hold—your identity is your own business. You'd no more give it away than you'd allow another to touch your mind. Until you do. One day you see the flame in another boy's eyes. You recognise it, the frustration with all the repression. The loneliness. The burning, angry possession of his unspoken name. You sit together next lesson and start breaking all the rules, in secret at first, just because you can._

 

The Master is asleep. The hypospray has fallen from his open hand and lies beside him, empty. The Doctor pockets it, watchful for tricks, but there aren't any tricks today. That he voluntarily used the sedative tells the Doctor most of what he wanted to know. The Master would never choose a disadvantage like this, or show weakness if he could help it. The loathing and disgust that he packed into that psychic sucker-punch were as honestly deliberate as it gets, but they were carried on a wave of mindless terror.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor sighs. The Master won't hear it said to his face, so he says it to his sleeping back instead. "You're safe now. I promise."

One mystery solved, anyway; aboard the _Valiant_ , he never could find out why the Master would leave off ruling the world and stay locked in his suite every now and then. Just for a day, maybe two. Any guard who dared crack a smile thought Lucy Saxon was the reason, and a perfectly good one. Anyone able to resist Archangel could tell it was more than that. A weakness the Master was hiding behind closed doors. Whatever else Lucy was to him, she wasn't that.

Sleep's the best thing.

He puts his palms against the wall while the TARDIS deletes the door. She almost feels her old self again, and seems curious as to why her leaky, noisy pilot suddenly has its telepathic shields on red alert.

"Let's give him some more space in there, eh?" The Doctor leans nearer to the wall, coaxing her. "Little bit more space. We don't need him stir crazy."

She probably will. He could demand it, use the controls to configure the interior dimensions any which way he wants them, but he won't. He wants the TARDIS to register the Master as a Time Lord, not an intruder, and she's had centuries to learn all about stubbornness and moods. From him, mainly.

Jack's mood hasn't improved, although it seems he's said his piece and decided on silence now. He's somewhere underneath the grating in the console room, working hard without his usual running commentary of one-sided banter and flirtation with the TARDIS. The man could flirt with a rock. And has done, come to think of it.

"Everything all right down there?"

"Fine." Muffled by whatever tool he's holding in his mouth, Jack doesn't elaborate. The Doctor bounces on his toes, thinking.

"Will I get executed if I go outside?"

Jack sits up fast enough to bang his head on something, noisily spitting out the tool.

"What? No, you'll get _arrested_."

"That's a bit depressing."

"He had the President of the United States executed. On live TV. By aliens." Jack stops enunciating as though he's trying to cross the language barrier and mutters, "People are funny about that."

The Doctor peers down through the grating, but Jack's just a shape in the shadows.

"So, you still vote 'hand him over'?" Rhetorical question, but he wants to know how angry Jack really is.

"Didn't realise this was a democracy." Jack sounds like he could spit acid, but there's a little something. Exasperation. Resignation. Maybe just a hint of humouring?

"You're just following orders then." The Doctor squats, peering between his knees at the busy shadows below him. There's a glint of green light on metal as Jack brandishes something in his general direction.

"Don't make me come up there."

The Doctor grins, bounces to his feet and gets back to work.

The console is almost as good as new. Everything the Master tore out, he left close to hand in case he needed it again. Everything he built in, he designed with his normal skill and artistry. You'd think he'd have to be deranged to even think of using a TARDIS this way, but the Doctor's had time to understand that the Master's faculties are unaffected by his madness. His knowledge, his intelligence and his insight—that's all still there, same as always. In a way, the paradox machine was perfect proof of that. That he'd even think of using it, that's proof of something else. The Doctor shudders and forces himself not to glance at the monitor. If the Master doesn't fight it, that sedative will have him out for hours yet.

He's absorbed with calibrating the shields by the time Jack surfaces. Pretends he's still absorbed when the Captain comes and stands too close behind him, watching over his shoulder. It's Jack, it's fine, but that nerve is still raw, and last night...

He doesn't make a habit of it. Humans. Well, anyone. What would be the point? Jack makes it easy, that's all, and last night was... nice. Is that allowed, can you say 'nice'? You can probably say it to Jack, the man who makes 'hello' sound like a gilt-edged invitation to join him in the pits of depravity.

"Doctor." Jack speaks softly, and the Doctor braces himself for a discussion he doesn't want. Can't stand. But Jack's always known better than to back him into that corner. "UNIT gave me a number to call. If you change your mind about keeping him here."

The Doctor nods, ashamed of himself for assuming and ashamed that his first response to the offer is more anger. He shakes his head.

"They had him locked up before. It was a disaster."

"I know. They showed me some files. You two have quite the history."

"You have no idea."

"I just..." Jack sighs. Almost touches his shoulder then remembers himself. "Are you sure this is what you want? Burning your bridges with Earth?"

"Is that what I'm doing?"

"Yes."

Blimey. He's spent lifetimes building those.

His fingers fumble the controls. He lets his hands fall to his sides as the sense of defeat hits him and the banked anger begins to rise and consume him. Takes his breath away, directionless and... and _pointless!_

After everything he's done, doesn't the Earth owe him this much?

"Right then." The Doctor flips a couple of switches for the look of the thing. "If that's what I have to do." The voice he got with this body has a life of its own. He can't hide much; his chest goes tight, his breath quavers and his voice betrays everything. Mental shields are one thing, but he's unlikely to start keeping his mouth shut. "Fine." He slams his hands down hard on the console, palms open so that it hurts at every point of contact. The pain brings tears to his eyes, and when he goes to do it again, Jack reaches around him and catches both his wrists before the impact.

"Don't," he breathes, his mind tight shut as he rests his cheek against the Doctor's head. "Talk to me."

"I can't." Or he doesn't want to, or maybe he doesn't dare. He can't tell the difference any more. "And even if I could it'd take forever."

"I've got forever. Apparently. Unless you can fix me."

"Can't do that either." He pats the back of Jack's hands, skin on skin to prove that he's fine now. No lasting damage. "You're an impossible thing, Jack."

"I've been called that before." Jack kisses the side of his head, then lets go of him, chuckling at some private memory. "Why'd she do it? Rose? Why'd she bring me back?"

It's like two frozen fists taking hold of his hearts so that it hurts to breathe.

"Compassion. Sense of fair play? Affection? I dunno." He never looked at Rose again without seeing her bathed in light. "She wasn't in control. You should've seen what she did to the Dalek Emperor."

He knows Jack wants to hear the rest of it—about their adventures, about her life after they left him behind. The best the Doctor's been able to do since he lost her is mention Rose in passing, so that the grief's just a glancing blow as he runs away. On to the next thing, quick, and not daring to look over his shoulder.

"You blame Torchwood."

The Doctor turns, numb. Which is just as well. Jack's expression betrays regret, not resentment.

"Yeah. I suppose I do. 'If it's alien, it's ours'?"

"Not my motto." Jack folds his arms, chin jutting stubbornly.

"What's yours then?"

"If it's a threat to Earth it can leave quietly or it's going down, hard."

"Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it?" The Doctor scratches his ear. "You do know old Queen Victoria had me in mind when she chartered Torchwood? That she was ticked off with me and Rose for _saving her life?_ "

"She mentioned it, yeah." Jack stays deadpan, and the Doctor, his thoughts running in a different direction, takes too long to remember that he's not joking. Caught off guard and stricken with guilt, he looks away from a face that says, _'yeah, I'm that old now, remember? I measured the wait for you in centuries, Doctor.'_

It would've been kinder to go back for him, wouldn't it? To explain. Too afraid, that was all. Easier not to think about Jack, and when Rose mentioned him, missed him, to throw them headlong into a new adventure that justified the running away.

Habit of a lifetime. Hard to break. Doesn't erase the shame, and neither does this hard suspicion of what Jack's chosen to become in his absence.

"Canary Wharf to Cardiff. What's that about?"

Jack's eyebrows shoot up. Startled that he'd relent. Is he as hard as all that?

"The Rift. We collect the debris. There's a lot of fallout." Jack looks frustrated. Defeated, and then not. "A lot of people are affected."

"I'll bet." The Doctor closes his eyes, but what he's seeing is on the inside and won't be ignored. A sweet young woman sacrifices herself to false angels, predators of the Rift, and he can't save her. Sent her to her death with good intentions. He kisses her, goodbye and thank you, and runs away. "So, you guard the Rift."

"And secure the alien junk that comes through. Yeah."

"But the Rift's been active recently. _Catastrophically_ active."

"Demon," Jack says. Shrugs. "From hell. I let it eat me."

"Right." The Doctor nods, vigorously, because he's lost for words. What can you possibly say in answer to that? Yvonne Hartman wouldn't have let anything eat her. Is that enough of a difference? Probably. Jack's no empire-builder, and he's no xenophobe. He's... Jack. "Defending the Earth. Can't argue with that."

These are the burning bridges that Jack's talking about, though. A cache of alien technology in the heart of Cardiff, in the hands of _Torchwood_ , and the Doctor's just going to walk away. He has other responsibilities, now.

Easy to say. Like forgiving, the reality is so much harder. The Master doesn't want to be forgiven and doesn't want his compassion or his help. The Doctor doesn't even know where to start. He only knows that the alternative is no kinder to anyone.

"We're leaving tomorrow. A long way from Earth."

Jack nods, resolute. With him and completely loyal, even though his preference would be to shoot the Master in both hearts and have done with it. Even though he's leaving something behind him here in Cardiff.

"Are you leaving anyone behind? Anyone special?"

"Oh yeah." His answer fades almost to a whisper and his eyes brighten with unshed tears. He smiles through it. Almost laughs. "I am."

The Doctor nods, but Jack deserves more than that. 

"Thank you." Gratitude is a start. He doesn't say it or mean it often enough. "For saving the Master's life. For everything." He holds out his hand, beckoning. Jack looks incredulous, but comes closer and takes his hand. The Doctor shakes his head, impatient. "Other hand."

"Okay." Humouring him, Jack presents his left hand for inspection. "Is this some kinky Time Lord thing? Hemisphere-play?" More deadpan. The Captain can't even help himself. "I'm in."

The Doctor rolls his eyes and shoves the sleeve of Jack's greatcoat out of his way to get at the vortex manipulator he wears strapped to his wrist. These things break all the rules, but who makes the rules now? Him? Him and the Master, just because they accidentally outlived all the rest? He applies his sonic screwdriver and undoes his own deadlock on the spatial and temporal coordinates. Jack's arm stiffens in his grasp; surprise, shock even. Then he relaxes, understanding that this is a proof of trust, and grips the Doctor's upper arm with his free hand in gratitude.

"There. So you can always find your way back home to Cardiff." He beams at Jack, too aware that the good cheer is superficial, and sounds it. When he's not angry, he just aches. "Probably even in one piece."

"Thanks."

"Do _not_ try it in here, or within a hundred feet of my TARDIS. You'll scar her for life."

"No, sir." Jack all but salutes him, but then he winks, lascivious and so alive. Impossible and abominable Jack, who's never going to die. Imagine that.

The Doctor stands on the edge of an abyss. He remembers being eight years old, scrambling backwards away from the Untempered Schism, stimulated beyond anything he could bear. Started running and never stopped, until he forgot how to do anything else but run from the things that make him feel he's falling into darkness.

Not this time. Not anymore.

He kisses Jack, and means it.


	5. Lagrangian Points

You don't often get the Doctor like this. He's still, he's quiet. Attentive in his own way, but not distracted by the opportunities that distract most people when Captain Jack Harkness lies next to them wearing nothing but a vortex manipulator. Jack's okay with that, and with resting in silence. There's three feet of empty bed between them, because however exciting it _sounds_ to screw somebody so alien that their body temperature is perceptibly different to your own, the novelty wears off fast once you try to get comfy together in the afterglow. Pity. They slot their fingertips together somewhere in the middle of no-man's land and call it a draw.

Present in the moment and not obviously itching for action, the Doctor is peaceful company. Like the stillness goes deep. Who'd believe that? Jack can't. Not entirely. Maybe it's something he picked up this past year, locked inside that aged body and waiting out the pain. Or maybe he's pretending right now because he feels he owes Jack the kindness of not bolting out the door.

"Are you okay being this close?" He squeezes the Doctor's fingers, lifting their hands slightly from the bed before letting them drop back. "Never mind etiquette. Do what you gotta do."

"It's fine. It's nice." The Doctor turns his head abruptly on the pillow and stares at him. "Is that rude? Can I say that?"

Jack laughs, charmed, then directs his gaze upwards at nothing. He doesn't want to scare the poor bastard away with a close look at how happy he feels right now.

"Yeah, you can say that," he says. The Doctor smiles so broadly, so pleased with himself that Jack can see it out the corner of his eye. How good does it feel to be the man who knocked that electric tension out of the Doctor and left him lying like that, peaceful and self-indulgent?

Jack works his way through the breathing exercise that stops his mind leaking white noise to any listening telepath; doesn't want to see the Doctor flinch away from him like it hurts, like earlier. Not now. That probably explains why the Doctor tends to keep it in his pants, though. Even in Jack's native time, mental shielding is a tool of the security and intelligence communities, not a courtesy to any passing telepathic alien but insurance against interrogation. Most of the people the Doctor runs into wouldn't know how to do even this much.

"Two telepaths in bed, how does that etiquette work?" He's always wondered.

"Carefully." The Doctor slips his left hand behind his head and nods to himself. "Very, very carefully." He gives their joined hands a little shake, as if he thinks Jack's attention might have wandered in the past two seconds. "Tell me about Torchwood."

"Pumping me for information, huh?" Jack doesn't think it, not really, but the suspicion seems to crystallise around the words the moment he says them. It hurts.

"Just ready to listen. Go on."

So, Jack tells him. Owen and Tosh and Suzie. Gwen and Ianto. That's all Torchwood is and, except for the hubris that went down at Canary Wharf, that's all it's ever been; the people doing the job because it has to be done. Most of them wind up giving their lives for Torchwood, one way or another, and his team, they're all so... young.

The Doctor just listens, though he slips his hand fully into Jack's and holds tight before he's done talking.

"When I came running after you I didn't think I was ever going back. Thought you could fix me so I could finally die." _'God.'_ Jack thinks, closing his eyes, _'I was so tired. So dead inside.'_

"And now?"

"Oh, I'm going back." Jack braves a look at him at last. Sees kind eyes and concern—little flash of smile as their eyes meet, like they're only now saying hello. "When I'm done here."

"Back to the moment you left and not a day older," the Doctor muses, propping himself up on his elbow. Jack feels suddenly like a specimen in a jar. "Can you remember it all? More time, more information than a human was ever meant to have? Can you retain that?"

"More than I want to. Not everything." Jack doesn't want this turning sour. Not this, so he aims for something lighter. And misses by a mile. "What do I turn into a thousand years from now? A million? Because I'm ageing. Slowly, but it's happening. Few grey hairs, some laughter lines. Do I keep on living if I crumble to dust someday? Do I feel that?"

"I don't know." The Doctor touches his face, fingertips only, drawing his focus away from the thoughts that come right out of his worst nightmares. Cool fingers trace the crow's feet beside his right eye, like the Doctor's memorising them for later comparison. "Do you want to know?"

Only with the Doctor could that be an offer to go look rather than a rhetorical question. Jack swallows hard, imagining it—walking up to some future version of himself and asking the questions. All the questions. Seeing his ancient-self look back at him without recognition, or with bitter contempt. Or scraping up the dust that's left and promptly losing his mind. Sickened, Jack turns his back to the Doctor, hiding the terror that has to be written all over his face.

"No." Jack thinks he's maybe just had a glimpse of how the Doctor feels to look at him. Just been shown that on purpose. "That'd be wrong," he manages, hoarse.

The Doctor strokes his hair, ruffling it softly with his thumb. Feels strangely intimate, the way the small things sometimes do, and Jack wonders if the gesture is spontaneous. If the kiss that brought them to a bedroom was. Looked it. Felt it. The old need and some new enthusiasm for this sort of adventure. The Doctor scoots up behind him and makes him shiver all over.

"I suppose... if I'm being objective, you're the one thing that's right and the rest of time and space is all wrong." Conversational, pleasant, the Doctor trails his fingers down Jack's arm.

"Including you?"

"Especially me. I'm wrong all the time. What do I know about anything? You're the fixed point. The rest of us just pivot on you. Even the Time Lords." He sniffs, sounding defiant. "Especially us, 'cause we can't help but know it." 

He plays these games, the Doctor. Word games, games with your mind and his own, games he always wins. But if somebody's terrified or broken, sometimes he'll just talk at them, pulling words out of the air like magic tricks, looking so harmless and making it better to be alive. You don't even know when he's sincere, but you always feel like he is, even when you know better.

"Your pillow talk could use some work," Jack complains, caught uncomfortably between something he wants to feel and something he really doesn't.

"Is that what this is? Have we been pillow-talking?" The Doctor smiles to himself, the way you'd smile if you saw something quaint and adorable. The man can bullshit his way through or out of anything, but he's not doing it now. Jack appreciates the openness—the chance to see him unguarded and curious instead of... instead of whatever he's been since the Master came back.

He hopes there's a better word for what the Doctor's been since the Master opened that watch than 'terrified'. He gently catches the Doctor's hand, neutralising the distraction.

"How long have you two been fighting? You and the Master?"

"I suppose... since we were your age. Give or take."

"That's some fight."

"Yeah. Is this still the pillow talk?"

"No."

"Ah." The Doctor kisses his shoulder—press of dry lips, little breath of anticipation, his hand twitching in Jack's defensive grip. God, he's so different from before; he doesn't kiss like there isn't enough time for the niceties, or like he'll die from the demons inside him if he doesn't grab hold of someone and blot out the pain. Kisses you like your skin feels good, your response feels good, your body feels good. Jack relinquishes his good intentions and lies back, pulling the Doctor down and kissing his mouth, hard. He knows that the Doctor is grasping at straws, that's he's only a straw, but he doesn't care. Worth it.

 

Three times in every twenty-four Earth hours, the Doctor goes in there with food and drink. Jack stands in the console room, arms folded, and watches a live feed from the cell. The Doctor doesn't call it that, a cell, but that's what it is. He has a man shut in there against his will—it's a cell. Jack doesn't care either way, just so long as the Master stays there.

Yesterday he was collapsed, incoherent, blood all over his chin. Today he stands up smoothly when the Doctor goes in, fastidiously tugging down the sleeves of a clean shirt and looking like he thinks he still runs the world. They don't speak. That is, the Master doesn't join in. The Doctor talks, pausing for replies that don't come. The Master just watches him with disdain until he leaves, then sits with his back to Jack's view of the room and eats the food the Doctor left on the table.

The TARDIS has been busy with the cell again. It's gotten bigger, and curving seats occupy corner alcoves next to cubby-holes that could be used as shelves. Still no privacy, the old girl's not crazy, but the facilities are partly screened from view by a frosted half-wall.

"Was that the Doctor's idea?" Jack pats the console. "Stick to your guns, gorgeous. The Doctor doesn't know what's good for him."

"Stop chatting up my ship, Captain."

"Great hearing, though." Jack turns to meet the Doctor and gets a mug of black coffee pressed into his hands. "He didn't try anything?"

"Wouldn't have worked if he did." The Doctor taps his temple, his eyes already busy checking out the work they have left to do. "Shields at maximum."

"He took you apart yesterday without even trying, while he was half out of his mind with pain. I'd hate to see what he can do on a good day."

"You have seen what he can do on a good day." The Doctor has a mug of something hot. Jack can read the slogan, _'To the World's Best...'_. The rest of the lettering has worn away with time and use. "Conquer the planet and torture my friends."

Jack nods, eyes front, the breath catching at the back of his throat. It doesn't help that what's directly in front of him is the screen showing the Master. Done with breakfast, he's trying out one of the double-curved corner seats. He looks like he thinks it might bite his backside—perches at the edge, keyed up and ready to jump, his outline stark black against the warm white walls. It gives a profile view of his expression, which is alert and shrewd. Jack knows the look; it turns his stomach and makes him start to sweat. That's intent.

"Your heart rate just jumped by twenty beats a minute," the Doctor notes, sipping his drink, like that's the sort of thing you say to someone every day. "Dilated pupils, sweaty palms, neurotransmitters firing like mad. Fight-or-flight. He's not even in the room, Jack."

Jack stares in disbelief. Not in the room? Is that supposed to erase the past? He doesn't get to be _afraid_ of what that monster could do next? An hour ago, the Doctor was kissing him, coaxing one last groan of pleasure and gratitude out of him, and it felt like he gave a damn.

"You don't know the half of what he did to me!" The words, so heated and hasty he almost runs out of breath, feel like they're driven out by a body blow. It gets some of the poison out into the open, leaves him shaken and sweating. Takes him a moment longer to realise that the provocation was deliberate.

The Doctor's compassion can be brutal sometimes.

"You don't have to hide it from me." The Doctor nods to the screen, grimly apologetic, and Jack gets the message. _'But you'll have to hide it much better than that from him.'_

 _'Who are you?'_ Jack thinks. _'And what have you done with the Doctor?'_

"I can handle him."

"Never doubted it. But we'll all sleep better with some precautions." The Doctor dips into one of his pockets, eyes never leaving Jack's. He holds up two silver bracelets, the cuffs Jack gave him in another lifetime to restrain another dangerous prisoner. 

Jack grins at the thought of the Master choosing between some asshole stunt and the threat of ten-thousand volts hitting his nervous system. That might not kill a Time Lord, but it'd give him one hell of bad day.

"Loving that plan."

"Yeah, except he dislocated his own thumb to get out of ordinary handcuffs. Think you can do something creative? And non-lethal?"

"On it." Jack takes the cuffs, but his heart's already sinking because he realises why. "You're letting him out of there."

"Soon as we leave Earth." The Doctor points a meaningful finger at the cuffs. "I need a guarantee of good behaviour, a non-lethal last resort, not an instrument of casual torture."

He honestly thinks there's a difference. Some days, Jack adores him for that. Today's not one of those. He just nods, letting himself get distracted by the security problem he's been handed. The cuffs are unbreakable, fit snug against skin so they won't slip off even if you're Houdini, but how crazy do you have to be to chew your own hand off if you really want out? Crazy as the man who incinerated Japan to make a point?

"Collar. Can't rip his own head off."

The Doctor looks squeamish, colour draining from his face to leave the freckles stranded and stark, but after a small hesitation, he nods. Jack doesn't need telepathy to read his thoughts. _'Has it really come to that?'_ The Doctor's eyes are drawn to the screen and Jack can see his resolve wavering. The Doctor, daunted. There's something else you don't see every day.

"How'd your people handle mental illness? The folks who failed the tests and couldn't be Time Lords?"

"I don't know. That should tell you everything you need to know about a society, a civilisation. I was one of the lucky ones and I don't even know what we did with the rest." He taps the monitor, fingernail blurring the pixels of the motionless Master. "But Gallifrey never saw anything like him, I know that."

There it is again; wistful regret that makes the Doctor sound old, tired and heartsick.

Jack spends a few hours in a workshop, of which the TARDIS has many, tinkering with nanocircuitry. It's a little outside his skillset, but then the TARDIS has tools and facilities way beyond anybody's skillset. If you're nice to her, she helps out.

"For the record," Jack tells the ship, conscious of what the Master did to her, "I was fine with the lethal option."

 

He's watching the Doctor stand in the light of those burning bridges. Repairs complete, the TARDIS is ready to go. The Doctor isn't. He's been flipping switches and adjusting dials for forty minutes, a Time Lord pretending that he doesn't know the time has come. You'd need to know him to read the anguish and agitation, the self-doubt, but Jack knows him.

"You could show UNIT your setup here," he suggests, knowing that it's going nowhere. You don't call the Doctor's bluff on anything that matters; UNIT know that too. "Show them he's secure."

"No."

"Put in a call to Lethbridge-Stewart." Jack's almost pleading, and it's only then, hearing his own voice, that he registers how shit-scared he is. He can feel this going bad before they've even begun. If the Doctor won't hear it from a friend, he might hear it from a man he truly respects. Lethbridge-Stewart is the only one who qualifies. "Satisfy him that the Master is se—"

"No." The Doctor pushes himself away from the console, burying his anger in movement, in action. He's been doing that a lot. "They made me choose. Earth or one of my own, the last of my own kind. I choose him." The effort of containing it leaves tears in the Doctor's eyes; wrenches his voice into something bitter and terrible. "We're going, he's protected, and if you don't like it you can walk out of that door, Captain." The Doctor points, commanding, and the arm he extends is perfectly steady. It's the rest of him that shakes. When Jack doesn't respond, the pointing finger becomes an open palm. "Cuffs."

"Collar." Jack pulls it from his pocket, a circlet of slim hypersteel whose ends overlap loosely. It looks like jewellery, understated matte silver about a centimetre wide. "Touch the terminals together and—"

"I know." The Doctor snatches it out of his hand, face like a storm cloud, and Jack holds up his hands in mock surrender. He's not the enemy. He recognises this knife-edge tension, though; he's been the one dishing it out often enough, and you can't talk it down or shame it. You can only wait it out.

He follows the Doctor to the cell, watching the man pull himself together by sheer effort of will. Can't face the Master in that state, so he doesn't; he straightens his back and blanks his expression, and goes in there with every muscle under his conscious control. It's impressive to watch, if terrifying when you saw him a moment ago, brittle to the point of shattering.

The Master stands up when the door opens, turning to face them and giving nothing away. He takes it all in; the Doctor, crumpled suit and inflexible expression; Jack, rolled-up shirtsleeves and hands in his pockets; the odds of getting past either or both of them to leave this little room. He gives it up without a fight and cuts Jack dead, focusing on the Doctor.

"You look awful." From the Master, it's an accusation. "What are you doing?"

He's pin-sharp today. Jack thinks back to yesterday, the Master curled up on the bunk and fighting some invisible enemy, barely aware of his surroundings. It could be a different man, this picture of cool dignity in a black suit, but it isn't. They can never forget that, but Jack's afraid that the Doctor will.

The Doctor shows him the restraint device. Jack pulls the control unit from his pocket and likewise displays it for inspection. The Master's lips harden, his eyes blaze, and then it's gone. All that fury, just gone. He's that good.

"Forget it."

"If you want to leave this room—"

"Cell."

"—there's no other way."

The Master looks like he wants to spit at the Doctor's feet. Speaks with clipped hatred.

"I am not your pet."

"We're about to leave Earth. It's not freedom, I'll give you that, but it's a choice." The Doctor holds out the flexible band, encouraging the Master to take it with a friendly little nod. "Your choice."

"And if I refuse, Captain Jack holds me down?" The Master turns the device in his hands, examining the inner and outer surfaces with his thumbs. His eyes stay fixed on the Doctor, full of contempt.

The Doctor glances over his shoulder, like he'd forgotten Jack was even there.

"Will you?" He's really asking, wide-eyed with surprise.

"Nope. He can stay here and rot. Safer for everyone, especially us."

That's what sells it, Jack realises later. The Doctor could've begged on his knees for all the Master cares; could've reasoned with him or threatened 'til he was blue in the face and gotten nowhere. He'd have refused just to spite the Doctor. It was 'us' that sold it—the picture Jack planted in the Master's mind of the two of them on the other side of that disappearing door. Together.

"You'll leave me alone," he says, a warning gesture at the Doctor with the collar in his hand. A negotiation from a position of weakness, or it should be, but the Doctor is the one who looks like he's about to run. "Let me out of here and leave me alone."

"You don't hurt anyone, you don't touch the TARDIS. You can't pilot her anyway." The Doctor puts his hands in his pockets. "Isomorphic controls." He shrugs, modestly. "Learn from the best, I always say." Anyone else and you'd be listening for that little hint of spiteful vengeance. Not him. This whole thing might be the worst idea in all of history, but it's not the Doctor's revenge. Does the Master know that?

The Master almost laughs at him, incredulous. Spreads his arms wide, like the Doctor's simple enough to require the visual aid to comprehension.

"I could kill us all without touching the controls."

"I suppose." The Doctor sighs, letting his voice get both weary and pitying. "But the TARDIS hasn't forgotten about you. Act like a Time Lord, eh? Or I can't speak for what she'll do to defend herself."

That enrages the Master—the pity. Jack sees it in his eyes, the tightness of his facial muscles. White-knuckled, he keeps his composure and stares the Doctor down.

"You'll leave me alone?"

"If that's what you want."

Nodding, breathing just a little harder, the Master smiles artificially at the Doctor. It chills Jack's blood with its promise of payback. Every one of them here can wait lifetimes for any of the others to make a wrong move. Jack knows it. The Master knows it. He licks his lips, visibly coming to terms with the concept, and you gotta admire the courage. He acts like a man with nothing left to lose, but that isn't true. He has the Doctor and he has a future, and he wants both of those at any price.

The Master dips his head and bends the metal wide enough to slip it on, leaving the band hanging loose from his neck. He undoes his tie, unfastens his collar, then makes a little beckoning motion with the fingers of both hands and lifts his chin to expose his throat, indicating that one of them should get on with it before he changes his mind.

"Captain." The Doctor stands toe to toe with the Master and catches the loose ends of the hypersteel band, touching them end to end. He settles the metal inside the Master's starched collar. "On my mark."

Jack presses his thumb to the sensor on the little screen of the control unit. He's designed it to be worn, maybe on a wrist strap like the vortex manipulator, and he's designed it so that it'll take both of them to unlock the restraint. One in physical contact with the collar, the other in physical contact with the screen, and no way for the Master to take a shortcut like, say, cutting off somebody's thumb. Hold a gun to one of their heads, the other still has options.

"Do it." Jack swipes the control. The Doctor lets go, little blue sparks fusing the loose ends together to make a seamless band around the Master's neck. The modified personal forcefield is a special touch of Jack's own, briefly glowing electric blue once the circuit is made. Keeps the damn thing from chafing—Jack's worried about the Doctor's conscience, not the Master's neck—and keeps the Master from even getting his hands on it if he ever feels like experimenting.

The Master leans towards the Doctor, smirking as he buttons his shirt, to whisper, "I consent and gladly give, eh?"

The Doctor turns sharply towards the door, looking like he's about to throw up. He claps his hands together and raises his voice in command as if he thinks it'll drown out his misgivings.

"Time we were going. Shall we?" He knocks Jack with his arm as he strides past, not even hiding how badly he wants to get out of there. Grinning, absentmindedly doing up his tie, the Master follows him.

Even Jack can tell that the TARDIS isn't crazy about the Master being loose. There's something in the tone of the background hum that he can't read as anything except protest. _'Tell me about it,'_ he thinks, following them to the console room.

The Doctor throws off his rumpled jacket, leaving it untidily over the back of a chair as he approaches the console. Flip of a switch restores the scanner, obliterating the view of the empty cell before the Master can get a good look at it.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Nowhere. We can idle in the time winds while you calm down."

"For how long?" Irritated as the Master is at being spoken to like a misbehaving child, he wants the information more than he wants to respond to the insult. Jack makes a mental note of that, leaning against a rail and watching the two of them. He keeps his finger on the control unit, ready to drop the Master where he stands if he tries anything.

"As long as it takes." The Doctor is all over the console, a manic burst of activity that leaves them ready for flight. He hesitates for the briefest moment when he finds his hand on a dial beside Martha's phone. "Ready?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "And off we go!"

The Master grabs his arm, moving so fast that Jack couldn't have stopped him—not with the collar, not by moving to intercept. It leaves his heart in his mouth, a cry of warning leaving his lips too late, but the Doctor doesn't even flinch.

"What?" he asks, patient as if the Master had put up a hand in class. And the Master lets him go. Just like that, it's over, and Jack knows better than he did before what they're up against.

"The shields, you idiot. Your _shields_ are offline!"

"Oh yeah." The Doctor smiles, bright and fake. Jack can't tell whether that was a test or if he just tried to throw them into the vortex without protection. He hits the console with a big flourish. "Shields up. Thanks for that. Anything could've happened, couldn't it?"


	6. Perturbation

He liked his life aboard the _Valiant_.

That's a reluctant admission, with its past tense and sour aftertaste of defeat. There was the luxury, the obedience; the satisfaction of a plan well on its way to ultimate fruition. King in his sky castle, master of all he surveyed. Servants, delicacies. Time to discover the decadent delights of the Earth before destroying them forever.

He'd earmarked several of the planet's higher achievements for careful preservation. Cultivated strawberries, for example, picked at the height of ripeness and quartered on a white porcelain plate. Chocolate, of course; the cacao bean—that commodity the human race took to the stars, back in the old reality, and which no science, however advanced, could replicate in all its molecular glory. For some species a luxury but for others a poison, a drug worth dying for. The Master likes to lie with his eyes closed while a single square of dark chocolate snaps between his teeth then melts slowly on his tongue. Coffee, another of the Earth's randomly unique chemical bombshells, was too good to lose in the push for conquest.

For the Earth's art and culture, he's always cared little. Limited minds, always mistaking the basic building blocks of beauty for inspiration or genius. Their music though, he was saving that, from the first brave electronic note through to the dawn of a bleeding-edge acoustic renaissance that coincided with his rise to power.

As for their technology, only one thing to be plucked from the pyre: The projectile weapon. There are entire galaxies that progressed from rock-throwing to rocketry without significant pause, hampered only by their understanding of simple mathematics, but humanity literally shot itself in the foot along the way and stumbled through protracted dark-ages of inventive personal destruction. Energy-based weapons can disintegrate or slice flesh, overload the nervous system, fry the brain stem, and they all have their place, but he'll admit to a sentimental weakness for the bone-shattering physical impact of the humble bullet. It's so... definite. Personal and primitive. Like throwing that rock.

So much for the human race.

The Master walks deeper and deeper into the Doctor's TARDIS. At first, he wants only to move his body and to distance himself from the Doctor, but curiosity soon becomes a companion. He tries door after door, compelled to know what's behind each one. There's no physical, practical reason why a TARDIS shouldn't contain a million miles of corridors, or more rooms than the standard crew could utilise in a lifetime, but the fact that the Doctor's modifications stretch to infinity strikes the Master as tasteless. A sprawl on the furniture, a clutter, a telling display. In the equally telling parlance of the Doctor's adopted homeland, 'manspread'.

Perhaps size impresses the humans who travel with him? This ridiculous TARDIS merely leaves the Master footsore, thirsty and annoyed.

He locates a workshop and makes a study of the restraint device around his neck. He need not tamper with it to understand it, and he experiences an unfamiliar, guts-deep sense of caution as he works with probes and scanners. It isn't one of the Doctor's creations. Like the sprawling empty rooms and spiral staircases, the Doctor's invention is always ad hoc and over-designed—boastful of its own eccentricity. The collar they put on him is anything but that. It's simple, which makes it ruthlessly efficient, which makes the Master think of Harkness. Time Agent, wasn't it? Fifty-first century thugs with a crude and dangerous grasp of time travel, but endowed with adequate law-enforcement technology and other means of social persuasion.

A forcefield envelops the device, which is a neat trick in itself. Self-generated, close fitting—he can barely feel the lump it makes beneath his shirt, or the minimal energy discharge against his bare skin where contact disrupts the field. Energy that can be redirected into... what? The readouts don't tell him, but the placement seems significant. The neck, one of the most vulnerable areas for most humanoids, his own species emphatically included. A neural shock, very probably. Instant blackout.

Harmless? He doubts it, but then he thinks about Harkness following at the Doctor's heels like a grateful puppy and thinks again. Harkness wants him dead, but he'd obey the Doctor anyway, wouldn't he? How _does_ the Doctor inspire that kind of loyalty? He doesn't deserve it, not ever, and he doesn't force them, yet the humans fall at his feet in perpetual adoration. Why?

Why does that bring Lucy to the forefront of his mind and cause him to glance down at the ring on his left hand? Would you call it adoration, that way she has of looking up at him? In the sense of 'veneration', perhaps you would. He became her reality, her master, her everything. Where is she now? Dead?

He searches for any trace of emotion at the prospect that he's become, by the narrow standards of that time and place, a widower; that he wears this ring not as a sign of continuing ownership but as the remnant of a sentimental attachment. Harold Saxon's attachment, for sure, but Saxon was a part he enjoyed playing. Humanity's mundane problems are legion. Being seen to make the effort to solve any one of them, being acclaimed, provided a welcome diversion. So did Lucy—the little rituals of courtship and conquest, of setting up a London home together, and of making her his companion across time and space. As far as this crippled TARDIS would allow him, at any rate. The end of the universe was all the exposure Lucy needed. He could have taken her mind, subsumed her will to his own, but there was no need. One look at what was really waiting for humanity and she was as malleable as wet clay and as grateful as any one of the Doctor's pets.

He killed her father once he'd outlived his usefulness. Induced a heart attack and stood over the man until it was too late for help to come. Easy. There was Lucy on his arm in her black dress and half-veil, going through the motions of human grief. So picture-perfect a month after the white wedding. All that media attention feeding into the Archangel effect; Harry Saxon shunning the cameras and suspending his campaign to support his new wife at this terrible, tragic time.

 

_"Did you kill him, Harry?"_

_"Of course I did." Truth. Why lie? He's all she has now. "It was absolutely painless." The old man writhed on the carpet, blue lips and gasping agony. "Everything will be all right."_

_"Yes." Black gloves in her hand with the white handkerchief that stayed dry throughout the service. The only mark on it is from her mascara. "Yes, I know it will be. It won't be long now, will it?"_

_"No, my darling." In stockinged feet, Lucy fits perfectly into the crook of his arm, her temple just where he can kiss it. "Just a little longer. Be brave."_

 

No, Lucy won't be executed. The Doctor wouldn't allow it. He slipped into her mind before they took her away, didn't he? Fingertips soft against her face, thoughts inside her thoughts, finding her out and forgiving her. None of that was his to do with another man's wife.

 

_"Doctor..." He feels it when Lucy adds her voice to the throng. The foundation is plucked from a house of cards, the construct he's made of her folding and falling to become a flat, cold loathing. "Doctor..."_

 

The ring won't move. Knuckle too big. He comes this close to severing his finger with a laser probe, but the red mist clears in time. The drumbeat resonates in his heaving chest as he narrows the beam and slices through the soft gold instead, leaving only a thermal burn on the flesh. Leave her behind. Leave Lucy here. All that she is, all that they were. Damn the woman!

He bends the ring open easily with the other hand and flips it away from him. A twisted scrap of pure gold on a workbench so deep inside this TARDIS that it'll never be seen again. The Master stares at it, tossing down the laser probe and sucking his stinging finger.

No more of this.

He walks again. Just walks and walks. The corridors narrow towards the heart of the ship, all function at the expense of aesthetics. The Doctor's flourishes are absent from the engine levels, although the Master does find a tool kit lying on the floor, grossly inappropriate to the advanced technology of its surroundings. Earth tools, twentieth century carbon steel. The hammer is missing. The Master leans against the wall, fatigued and too warm, and envisions the Doctor tinkering with the inner mysteries of his capsule as if they were an internal combustion engine.

No TARDIS was ever supposed to spend this long in service. It's one of the ugly secrets of Gallifrey—one of many. They were grown and powered and coaxed into something as near to consciousness as can be manufactured, and then they were used like beasts of burden. Quickly obsolete, too dangerous to be allowed the slightest flaw or fault, they were discarded; too difficult to destroy, so they languished instead. This one was already on its way to the scrap heap when the Doctor took it. He's kept it going over the centuries, stealing or begging or cobbling together components when he could have demanded a model in its prime. He was once the Lord President. He fought for Gallifrey in the Time War. He was owed ten thousand little favours. It flatters the Doctor's vanity to imagine he was too much the renegade ever to be granted a TARDIS through official channels. He fought the war in this relic, one the Daleks learned how to destroy long ago, and he survived.

_'All I could do was run.'_

Somewhere out there, the location intentionally hidden even from himself, the Master left a TARDIS that was ahead of its time during the Time War. They brought him back, the High Council, and they kitted him out and pointed him at the Daleks and said, _'kill, kill as much as you want. You were born for this. You are of us, our Lord Master, son of Gallifrey. Now we need you to kill.'_ And he did kill. Not just Daleks. That was easy.

He never told Lucy about the past. He thinks the Doctor must be the same with Martha Jones and the train of other camp followers, because how could they understand? Like this old capsule, those limited companions flatter the Doctor's vanity; reflect him in a light diffuse and distorting enough that he can bear to glimpse himself through their eyes.

One exception, though. A name ripe with significance. Rose Tyler. He half remembers a conversation from the time when he was still human, but the details elude him. The Doctor and Harkness both knew her, yes? She was the one who absorbed the vortex itself and changed reality, changed Harkness into that abomination. What else?

It's hard to think. Dredging the past dredges up the drums; accessing the time he spent in human form is worst of all. Why would that be? Human thoughts are so simple, their memories cut down to size by the necessity of inadequate storage. He can remember _being_ Yana, but day to day? The life he lived and the thoughts that occupied him? A blur and a maddening drumbeat. It's like a dream. Those final hours... the Doctor there... that's just a blur.

Gritting his teeth, the Master digs deeper.

 

He's on the floor, back to the wall, somewhere in the outer reaches of the maintenance corridors. A Time Lord who's mislaid his sense of time. Hunger and thirst tell him that it's been days since he tested the boundaries of his confinement and walked away from the Doctor, unchallenged. Good as his word, the Doctor, but the Master doubts that he'll be permitted to die of slow dehydration; doubts equally that this TARDIS will allow him to locate water without forcing him to return to those inhabited areas where the Doctor and Harkness are waiting to play his jailers.

Stand up. Move on. Interrogate that missing time on Malcassairo until the pain gives way to clarity.

Some particular sadist invented the Chameleon Arch technology—that rare escapee from amongst the shameful perversions of science hidden away on Gallifrey. Not all of those dirty secrets are as ancient as the Time Lords liked to pretend. Someone, some sombre committee probably, once thought it would be a great idea if the crew of a TARDIS could integrate fully into the local environment, should the urgent need arise. Say your capsule is crippled; abandon ship; stuck on a level-four or -five world without hope of short-term rescue. Say the secrets of Gallifrey are in peril. You'd use the Chameleon Arch to blend in, to hide, and to avert any temptation to stride out into that primitive society and become their seer, their king—become their _god_ with your superior knowledge and wisdom. In theory, the Time Lords will find you, rescue you, restore you, but that was for a sanctioned mission. That was then, when all they ever did was observe.

He's always loved the irony of the pocket watch. Timepieces are redundant for a Time Lord, but most of them carry one; a self-satisfied nod to their own mastery of time. There's something pleasurable, soothing even, about hearing time measured in mechanical monotony. If you need a vessel in which to store a Time Lord consciousness and the biological imprint of a billion years of controlled evolution, what else are you going to use?

It's agony, and rescue never comes. But the Doctor came.

Rose Tyler. Harold Saxon came across the name too. She'd been at Downing Street during the missile incident; known Harriet Jones; was flagged as a recent known associate of the Doctor. Died at Canary Wharf during the Torchwood incursion. Her name is on the discreet new memorial wall there, the design for which passed over his desk for approval. After a few weeks with the Ministry of Defence, most things did. But it's a lie; there's no body in the mass grave to match that name on the memorial. Rose Tyler is just a name. The Doctor lost her, but she didn't die. Parallel world, out of his reach. A chit of a girl, a human capable of absorbing the time vortex and wielding the power of eternity. He _mislaid_ her.

 _God,_ the Doctor is a fool.

Yana's memories hurt every bit as much as the Chameleon Arch did. A regeneration smart on the heels of opening the watch—oh, not good. Ripped him open, this one, and left him as defenceless against the sound of drums as that human weakling had been. But he's finally learned to listen to them.

_Listen, listen._

 

_Lucy Cole finds him alone on the terrace, forced into retreat from a reception too packed with stinking, inane humanity. He barely hears her small talk over the pounding in his head; watches her slender fingers twist the stem of a champagne flute. She's drawn to him, as so many humans are, but she's equally repelled by the masculine fug of cigar-smoke finance in her father's social circle. She's drawn to a breath of fresh air._

_She offers him aspirin from an abalone shell pill box, swallowing two herself with the last gulp of champagne and grimacing meaningfully towards the French doors. Harry Saxon smiles, declines with good grace; peels himself away from the coolness of the wall and asks her if she's ever wanted to travel._

_Her eyes widen with longing. He sees all the ways in which he can change her for the better; sees how she can fit into the future he's creating and how she'll look standing by Harold Saxon's side._

_"Oh yes," she breathes, captivated. He isn't even trying. "I want to see the world."_

_"We can do much better than that."_

 

Come on, _think!_ Forget about Lucy. One problem at a time. The Doctor. Harkness. The restraint collar. The isomorphic controls. These endless, _stupid_ passages that lead nowhere except to more spiral staircases and logic-defying junctions of tunnel, walkway, gantry and duct. They used to tell time-tots that an imprinted capsule would digest stowaways and other enemies when the rightful pilots weren't looking. Inside this thing, the Master can almost believe it. He feels like he's trapped inside the Doctor's imagination; the frustrated architectural outpourings of a deranged mind.

Is the TARDIS misdirecting him? Hard to be sure, but the Doctor did warn him. It screamed and screamed while he built the paradox machine; screamed like music in his mind until its lifeforce was folded back on itself, contorted into a silence that screamed just as loud; ready to hold the paradox under tension. A living death. Imagine the pain. Just imagine it. Even now it takes his breath away—half excitement, half terror.

Forward... or... back?

He goes forward, redirecting his focus inward to look for the thread of the Doctor's thoughts. He became accustomed to proximity, on the _Valiant_ , but the thread he seeks is much older than that. The _Valiant_ was a stalemate, their mutual, involuntary perceptions neutered by Archangel, but long ago the Doctor yielded to him. Left a thread that could become a leash, or a lifeline, or a love so fierce that it could burn out the stars. Become anything they required of it, provided they act as one to shape it.

Here and now, it's connection. Incomplete. A trail of breadcrumbs, a scent he can follow back to its source if the Doctor doesn't actively block him. He feels the Doctor's sleeping mind and hesitates, sketching out its unfamiliar shape and dimensions with his innermost senses. He can't intrude; this isn't a weapon or an invitation. It's only a route map, a pathway long disused. 

The Master leans his shoulder against a wall and controls his breathing. The Doctor is... vast. Like his ship, fathomlessly complex and convoluted and _impossible._

Has it been that long, that he could have changed this much?

There's an order of perfect simplicity in the chaos of the architecture—one he can only see now that he's glimpsed the scope of the mind behind it. This obsolete and ever-evolving TARDIS reflects the Doctor, mirrors him in symbiosis that goes beyond the functional necessity of linking pilot with craft for control. They're interwoven in a way that no temporal engineer allowed for in the design. Does that make it a weakness? He doesn't even know.

Follow the thread. He's taken his body to a limit to test his independence; now it's time to cut his losses. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Plan. Consider Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness as pieces of the puzzle that is the Doctor, because divide and conquer...

Actually, that never works. Stupid. He learned a long time ago that the Doctor lives a charmed life, and that part of that unearned state of perpetual grace is the loyalty of his companions. He trusts them because he can.

Divide and consider, then. Isolate the factors that make the Doctor stronger or weaker; make a study of where pressure might be best applied. Find the end of a thread with which he can start to unravel that hair-shirt the Doctor has taken to wearing, because what is he beneath it, now? What is he really?

He destroyed the world, their world, and he walked away. That the Doctor can still function—walk, think, speak and do whatever it is that he's doing with Harkness—is as intriguing as it is offensive. Picture the Doctor's hand on that big, red button. He ends it. Then... what? Does he run for his life, run to his TARDIS and flee the time lock, like a coward? Does he fall to the ground and weep, clawing at Gallifrey's dust as he whispers platitudes? _'I had no choice, forgive me, it was the only way, I'm so, so sorry.'_

The puzzle occupies him for much of the weary walk back—something to worry at, direct his rage at. Then, like a breath of fresh air, just as he passes a library that, rather improbably, contains a swimming pool, the Master has it. How the Doctor did it; how he ended the Time War. How he committed genocide and how he survived it. It takes his breath away, it's so truly awe inspiring. He bites his lip, drops his head back and savours the visceral pleasure-pain of _knowing_. Then he starts planning how he's going to make the Doctor _tell_ him what he did, and how it felt, so that the very words bleed him with remorse and shame.

 

In what's supposed to be the ship's standard galley and refectory, the Master discovers an horrific installation of deep-toned Formica, geometric wallpaper and mismatched household appliances from a dozen different time zones and star systems. The predominant theme is 'Earth retro', while the overall effect is an affront to discernment and good taste everywhere.

Typical.

Cupboards and a variety of cold-storage and stasis units contain very little that resembles food. A museum collection of food replicators turns out to be just that, because not one of them is functioning properly. The original TARDIS fixtures, the ones that could not easily be deleted from the essential structure, have the look of decay about them. An advanced molecular replicator invites him to select from a variety of refined protein and carbohydrate sources, but dispenses a flimsy biopolymer cup filled with assorted screws, bolts and washers.

"Doctor!" Snarling, the Master crushes the cup in his hand and flings it against the wall where it bursts, the contents clattering to the floor and rolling in every direction. It barely satisfies.

"Now, then. I thought you were going to calm down?"

The Master restrains his overpowering urge to go for the Doctor's throat. Instead, he turns around and straightens his shoulders, regarding the man in the doorway with frosty disdain. The Doctor smiles, stops leaning like a spectator and approaches. He doesn't appear to be carrying the control unit for the restraint collar, but the Master knows better than to underestimate his sleight of hand.

Rather than confront him, the Doctor begins pulling packets, jars, tins and boxes out of dry-storage cupboards, cluttering up the longest of the counters. Breakfast cereal appears to be the main staple, but there are several pots of jam, tins of soup and a pile of confectionary items. Entire cupboards are devoted to beverages and snacks of the 'just-add-boiling-water' variety.

"You _live_ like this?" He's genuinely taken aback. Little about the Doctor should surprise him, but everything does. He's also appalled.

The Doctor glances over his shoulder, halfway through licking the finger he just submerged to the second knuckle in a tin of golden syrup.

"Like what?" He blinks, looks at the assortment of junk food, then shrugs, looking stung. "I don't know what you mean."

The Master goes and picks up a vibrant yellow box marked 'Crunch-o-Loops', which he recognises from the picture as the last meal served in his cell. He brandishes it.

"I thought the menu was part of my punishment."

"Sorry." Leaning back against the counter, without a jacket and tie, the Doctor seems artlessly unaware of the effect he makes; carefree, slightly crumpled, as if he's too busy to find clothes that fit him properly. It conveys a backhanded hint of casual brilliance, but the Master knows all about disguises. He knows about the part played by body language, and that the Doctor's homely, abstract ease is belied by his elevated body temperature and the taint of Captain Jack's manly pheromones. He looks well-fucked yet agitated, and he's forgotten that the Master can see right through him.

"Am I to understand that you've been rampaging through the cosmos all this time on a never-ending sugar-high?" To the Master's disgust, he smiles as he says that, genuinely amused; feels a lightness in his chest, fuelled by rusty fondness that he thought had died so long ago. The Doctor grins back, caught out and grabbing at the moment of connection.

"That one works, if you give it a kick." Indicating one of the least likely-looking replicators, the Doctor watches him, sobering quickly. Taking in the state of him—unshaven, unwashed, untucked. Dehydrated and exhausted. "Are you all right?"

No, _no_ , he doesn't play that card. Not to win. Not ever. The Master vents his renewed spleen with a kick to the machine in question and gets a tray of neat food cubes for his trouble, followed by a pouch of hydration compound. A day's battle rations. He rubs his hands together.

"Oh, look! A real taste of home."

"Don't."

"Why not?" The Master selects the least eye-watering of the Formica-topped tables and installs himself there, his back half turned to the Doctor. Just enough peripheral view left to see how he reacts. "I didn't blow it up."

He doesn't react. Not outwardly. Not a muscle twitches. You just feel him die a little. The Master, likewise, keeps his slow smile private. Makes a show of quenching his thirst and, for want of better, consuming two of the bland cubes. It's nothing to him. He can't recall eating during the War. Must've done, along with all the other life processes he was trying so desperately to preserve, but he can't remember it and doesn't care to.

"Doctor." He times it just right. Just as the Doctor gives up and is about to go away. "The sedative." Even as he tugs on those tender heartstrings, it costs him to hint at weakness; to allow that a night of drugged sleep did him any good. "I need more."

"Right." Hesitation. Assessment. _'What harm can it do? Is he really asking for my help?'_ "Right then."

The Doctor messes about with his pockets for a while, buying himself time to think. He isn't taken in; it's not that easy and he isn't that kind of fool. He slaps a small notebook down on the next table over and writes for a while with a chewed ballpoint pen. Tears off the page and puts it beside the Master's hand.

The formula, the molecules sketched out and annotated. A bid to earn his confidence. He nods, giving the Doctor nothing back, even as he admires the efficacy of the compound. It's been tailored to their Gallifreyan physiology, to be shaken off at need but to work perfectly otherwise, and the Master can think of only one reason why the Doctor would invent such a thing: Because he couldn't sleep either.

"Clever."

"I suppose." Wary, baffled and gratified, the Doctor leaves him to his meal. The Master commits the formula to memory before discarding the paper with the remains of the food. He'll head to the medical bay, after a show of suitable reluctance, and then get a good night's sleep.

This is a place to start.


	7. Periodic Solutions

_Day one-hundred and thirty-four. Twenty-seven minutes past two in the afternoon. Jack dies, hanging by the wrists from his chains, with only the Master and the Doctor close enough to hear him croak, "Please, no more."_

_It took four months of this to make Jack beg._

_The Master's sigh of delayed gratification almost perfectly matches the duration of Jack's final breath. He leans down to speak into the Doctor's ear—intimate, confidential, with more than a hint of a shuddering frisson._

_"Oh, now, that... That was worth the wait, wasn't it?"_

_"Master." His own voice is feeble, shaky from the horror and weak simply because his entire body is weak. He's further muffled by an oxygen mask. The Master lifts it from his mouth and nose, tucking it beneath his chin. He crouches beside the wheelchair, cocking a listening ear._

_"Something to say, Doctor?"_

_"Please, stop this." He has to gasp for air before he can go on. Hearts are struggling, immune system weakened by the Lazarus process, by the months of immobility and strain. "Tell me... how... to stop... this."_

_The plastic mask is shoved unceremoniously back on his face when he slumps forward. Breathing comes a fraction easier again._

_"It's grotesque when you start turning blue. Stop it."_

_"Tell me... what you... want." Everything starts going black around the edges._

_"I want to kill him. Hardly my fault that it doesn't stick." Standing up quickly, the Master gestures to the guards waiting at the nearest hatch. "Take him to the infirmary. Tell them_ no drugs _, have you got that? I'll attend to him myself."_

_"Yes, sir." The guards answer in unison, in tones of obedient lethargy, and the Doctor is wheeled away._

_Jack may have broken at last, but this won't be the end. Nothing's ever broken enough. Not for the Master._

 

 

He's never spent much time watching humans sleep. Too much else he could be doing with the time. Now that he has more time on his hands than he's ever wanted, the Doctor sometimes sits still and watches Jack cycle through the inefficient stages of human sleep. He probably doesn't need it any more, not physically. Not with the powers of healing he's already displayed. His mind still needs to rest though, and his body clock to reset itself. There's an experiment the Master never tried on him—sleep deprivation. Not that the Doctor knows about. If Jack's body chemistry becomes so unbalanced that he loses his mind, does he recover again the next time he revives?

It's a rite of passage, observing that. The first few times, close up, even the Master flinched. It's witnessing the impossible—an event that should not and cannot be. Then it happens, and time tears open to make enough room for Jack Harkness in a future that didn't allow for him before.

One day he might work up the courage to ask Jack how it feels to take that first breath as his body repairs itself. That's the thing about regeneration. It's immortality by the standards of most life forms, but it's only delaying death. A Time Lord never cheats death, though god knows the Master and others have tried. Regenerating is changing every cell in your body before the point of death, to avoid dying. It doesn't come with a glimpse of what might lie beyond... or what doesn't. It doesn't bring you back because you never went anywhere.

Jack dies. The Master ran every scan he could contrive with the technology available to him aboard the _Valiant_ ; shared his findings as though with an interested colleague. And the Doctor listened without rising to the bait. Watched him dine, drink and lounge while he elaborated on all the ways in which Jack Harkness was clinically, objectively, unequivocally dead.

But he'll never stay that way. Even when he must wish he could.

 

 

_"I can reverse it, you know. Make you young again." The Master leans over his hospital bed, whispering as if he doesn't want the infirmary staff to hear him. "Make you strong. All you have to do is tell me—" he taps the end of the Doctor's nose with the tip of his laser screwdriver "—where Martha Jones has gone. Where did you send her? How is she travelling?"_

_Oxygen via a tube in his nose is drying his throat. The Doctor struggles to speak._

_"You don't... have to... do this."_

_"Martha." Tap. "Jones." Tap. "Tell me."_

_Can't. He doesn't know. Wouldn't even if he could. He's dying now, must be, or why would the Master offer the bribe? No regeneration. He might live on for a long time as he is, barring mishaps like this one, but nothing could induce these worn out cells to regenerate if the body fails. Death, this time, means death. The Doctor closes his eyes and remembers Martha stepping out of the TARDIS into Shakespeare's London, overjoyed to be out of her depth. So alive. He's asked so much of her. What if he's not alive when she succeeds?_

_The Master slaps him. Not very hard. Like he's slightly worried that the Doctor might shatter._

_"Wake up. See this?" He holds a syringe of urine-coloured liquid where the Doctor can see it. "This'll sort you out. Never trust a human to do a Time Lord's job. Lazarus was an idiot." No argument there. The needle goes into his abdomen, unnecessarily painful. A burning cold into muscle. The Doctor refuses to flinch or make a sound, but the Master goes on talking to someone, as if he can't bear a silence without filling it with the sound of his own voice. "Like that. Two CC's every four hours. If he dies, I'll personally throw you overboard, understood?"_

_They're currently at ten-thousand feet over the Atlantic. The threat focuses the minds of the infirmary staff, who inject him like clockwork and nurse him like a baby._

_After two days, the Doctor knows for certain that he's going to live. The knowledge brings him no relief or pleasure._

 

 

Uninhabited worlds are surprisingly hard to find, if you're choosy about details like atmosphere, gravity and radiation levels. He'd like to let the Master leave the TARDIS, but not on any inhabited world. Not on any world with so much as a glimmer of technology. How can he?

_'Is this how it's going to be? Forever?'_

The Doctor scrolls through star charts in search of a planet that can survive the Master. He's never understood the other's need for conquest but he no longer doubts the force of it. Why the Toclafane, why the destruction? Because he could. Why the Earth? Because...

_'Because I sent him there.'_

He has nightmares about that, his mind determined to go over and over the moment when he locked the TARDIS controls. All he could do was contain the situation, minimise the damage. So, he minimised it to the Earth.

Awake, he doesn't second-guess the decision. Asleep, he sees Martha's face in front of him. She accuses him with her eyes.

Jack helps. Being with Jack. He second-guesses that decision all the time, but Jack knows his tolerances; that he can't make himself more human and has no intention of trying. They reach for those humanoid traits that they share—communication, affection and a brain chemistry that responds positively to physical intimacy—and leave the rest well alone.

If they fall asleep together, they can wake each other from the nightmares.

 

 

_Day one-hundred and forty-nine. He's out of the infirmary and somebody has dry-cleaned his suit. For the first time in weeks he can breathe deeply, think clearly. He can believe that his plan is going to work, and that he's going to live long enough to play his part in it._

_The Master tips Lucy out of his lap when they wheel the Doctor into the conference room. The woman wobbles on stiletto heels, smiling self-consciously at the momentary loss of her finishing-school poise. The Master doesn't notice; he has eyes only for the Doctor, striding towards him._

_"Well, look at that! You're not dead."_

_As if he didn't make sure of that himself. The Doctor understands the work that must have gone into stabilising the Lazarus process; how fast and feverishly the Master must have worked on the cure once he realised the Doctor was dying._

_Not dead. Not yet. He thinks his plan might kill him. All that psychic energy, all at once... he can't imagine it. The scale of it. Will it be like kissing Rose and absorbing the vortex? That didn't kill him outright. He had a few minutes to do what needed to be done. To regenerate. Even enough time to say goodbye._

_Suppose he doesn't have time to thank Martha? Suppose the Archangel potential simply burns out his mind before he can act?_

_He's afraid, and he cannot let the Master know it._

 

 

The nearest spacefaring civilisation is three solar-systems away. They surveyed this planet in the middle years of their galactic expansion and gave it a code instead of a name, they thought it was so boring. Converted to Earth English, you'd call it G-8439. A few letters down the alphabet they used as a categorisation system, and a string of disappointing numbers down the priority list. Suitable for colonisation, just, but why bother? The atmosphere is as thin at sea level as most carbon-based species can survive without breathing equipment. At altitude, few could survive for long, and this world has too few unique resources to make it worth the effort of strip-mining from orbit.

"Nice vacation spot," Jack drawls, reading over his shoulder. "I'll get my bathing suit." He reaches past the Doctor to give the screen a prod. "Scratch that, the salinity's so high we can walk on the water." Another prod, another readout. "And at these levels we'd better bring the sunblock. Or maybe the radiation suits."

"Do you want some fresh air or not?"

"While babysitting him? No."

"What's the range on the restraint?"

"He'd regret making it over the horizon."

"Well then."

Jack leaves it at that, but a tension settles over the two of them, shared by the TARDIS herself.

 

 

_Four guards drag Jack out onto the flight deck and chain him there, spreadeagled in full view of the security cameras._

_The Master makes sure that the Doctor is always near a screen for the next few days, and wakes him in the night to rewind over his personal highlights._

_Jack doesn't try to hang on to his self-respect out there, so he doesn't shoulder the humiliations, but the Master assumes he does and celebrates each one. The Doctor doesn't know whether it honours Jack more to watch or look away._

_"What would you give me to make this stop?" His arm is across the Doctor's shoulders, a gesture that would seem companionable if not for the way the Master shudders with pleasure at the sight of another man's suffering. "Hmm? Will you give me Martha Jones, Doctor? I asked Jack and he wouldn't tell me, and now look." He affects a hurt pout, a hand over his hearts._

_"He doesn't know."_

_"He gave her the teleportation device." Quicksilver, the Master snatches up a remote and changes the image on the screen. Martha on the floor with Jack, the day the world ended. He slips her the vortex manipulator, fingers sure on the settings, but he doesn't even look. All he did was trigger a failsafe setting. It would've delivered her to the nearest habitable landmass, and then... Neither of them know where she went next. All these months later, they couldn't even guess. "A vortex manipulator, isn't it? But she can't be trying to travel back in time to prevent me taking control. Not with the incorruptible Doctor looking on. You won't change events even for your friends, will you, Doctor?" The Master leans in so close that his lips almost brush against the Doctor's temple as he speaks. "Where is she_ going? _" He grabs the back of the wheelchair and gives it a hard shake._

_"I don't know." But he knows from the Master's frustration that his security forces are still at least one step behind Martha. And that he's afraid._

_It's day one-hundred and seventy-nine. Jack dies four days later when the Master, bored and impatient and angry with his wife for spilling coffee on her new dress, orders the_ Valiant _back up to cruising altitude._

_The Doctor doesn't look away._

 

 

Humans are the most fantastically complicated creatures in the universe. Jack's anger is cold and clipped when he's all business, when there's a mission, but when they're alone in a nondescript bedroom it turns into something else. He doesn't leave it at the door, he just redirects it into a persistent tenderness that's almost brutal to receive. The Doctor finds a passive oblivion in these encounters, the universe shrinking until it contains nothing but the two of them and an unspoken agreement to heal one another.

These aren't the times when they talk or try for round two, or when the Doctor remembers he was in the middle of something vital and runs off to fix it. These aren't the times when he sits and watches Jack sleeping, or fetches him a cup of tea so that he won't be alone when he wakes.

These are the times when they turn the lights out and hold on to one another, shaken; afraid to move or speak in case they break the spell.

 

 

_Martha's mother crouches beside his wheelchair, making a big play of adjusting his blanket and his jacket. None of the many cameras on the bridge can pick up her face from this angle; she's every bit her daughter's mother._

_"He didn't come out of his suite today. The guards don't know why. I think the hypnosis, the whatever it is, is weaker. They're frightened."_

_"Don't risk antagonising them." The Doctor barely allows his lips to move._

_"I won't. But Tish, my daughter, she managed to get some extra food to your friend."_

_He doesn't answer her; he's always within sight of at least one camera. Instead, beneath a fold of the tartan rug across his knees, he squeezes Francine's fingers in gratitude._

 

 

"Doctor, you do spoil your travelling companions, don't you?" The Master, two paces outside the door, turns his face up to the golden sun and closes his eyes. "Only the best planets." Despite the sarcasm, he loosens his tie and takes a deep breath of sea air, as relieved as any of them to see the sky.

"Stay in the TARDIS if you like."

"Do you intend to strand me here? I think I can see something still trying to crawl out of the swamp."

"No." The Doctor tries to understand the Master's expression—that blend of hostility and alarm. Which outcome would he prefer? "No more running."

"Is that a fact?"

They stare at each other, the chasm between them so wide and deep now that they can't even measure it. All those lifetimes ago, on Gallifrey, it was nothing but a line scratched in the sand.

"I want to help you." He's said it so often that the words have started to sound odd; their meaning to lose its focus; the Master's eyes glaze before he's finished saying them.

"Really." Dragging his shirt collar open, buttons popping away into the black sand, the Master exposes the silver band around his throat. "Helping?"

"I can help other people, too. All those people you'd kill if I gave you the chance. I'll help anyone, me. You know that."

The Master turns and walks away from along the beach, throwing down his black tie and jacket without a backward glance. The gesture ought to look petty, a sulky tantrum, but it doesn't. This is pure disgust. This is the Master not killing him with his bare hands.

Jack comes up behind him and the two of them step out onto the beach, uncertain of what to do. The Doctor's feet want to explore, just like always—to find a reason to run, and a reason why this unpromising planet is beautiful after all.

"He's never going to forgive me." He didn't mean to say it aloud. Jack brings these things out of him sometimes with the way he listens and watches. He always did. All the things he never wanted Rose to hear.

"The collar was my idea." Jack squeezes his hand without looking at him and heads down to look at the sluggish waves.

The Doctor nods, dragged along in the wake of the conversation, but knowing full well that he doesn't mean the collar, or the _Valiant,_ or even this open-ended captivity that he can suddenly see killing them all by inches.

He means the line in the sand.

 

 

 _Japan burns. It's the first full-scale assault since the Master took control of the Earth, and he allows the excited cries of the Toclafane to play from a loud-hailer across the flight deck. Even at five-hundred feet, the smoke reaches them. The_ Valiant _fires its laser weapons on the major cities, and the Doctor recognises the technology that wiped out two successive Christmas invasions over London._

_Harriet Jones and Torchwood. Turns out they were the least of the Earth's worries._

_"I have it on the best authority," the Master announces over the comms, "that Martha Jones was down there with the rebel forces. Forces, I might add, that were not of this world." At the rail, a gun to her head to keep her from turning away from the flames, Tish starts to scream and falls to her knees. Her parents drag her back to her feet and hold her there, their faces set in defiance. They don't believe that Martha's gone, and no more does the Doctor, but his face becomes wet with slow tears._

_Japan is gone._

_That's enough. That's enough for anyone._

_Later, the Master hosts a dinner party at which the Doctor is the only guest. Guards manhandle him into an ill-fitting tuxedo and deliver him to the conference room, where a fine white cloth covers the long table. Several of the Master's handpicked domestic servants line the walls, hands behind their backs, and at the sight of the Doctor in a tuxedo, Francine Jones hides a helpless smirk by bowing her head. It takes everything he's got not to grin back at her, so grateful is he for the reminder of the random and the ridiculous._

_Lucy Saxon drifts to his side as the guards park his wheelchair at one end of the table. At the other, of course, the head place is laid for their lord and Master._

_"Welcome, Doctor," says Lucy, rehearsed and—yes, there in her eyes—mildly intoxicated. There's no smell of alcohol about her, but that doesn't mean very much. The Master has everything on Earth at his disposal, and everything that was in the TARDIS, too. And it needn't be a substance at all. The Master could do this to her all by himself, if he misuses his gifts; take her to bed and pursue her neurological responses all the way back to the reward centre of her brain. Stimulate that directly with his mind. From the human's side of things, it'd be sex to die for, until they actually... well... did._

_"Thank you, Mrs Saxon," he says, letting her smooth a napkin into place across his lap. "Are you keeping well?"_

_"I-I'm not to speak to you. Or listen to you." She probably wasn't meant to repeat the last part. Flustered, Lucy retreats to her own place where she's seated by a male servant the Doctor doesn't recognise. They disappear, the servants. The crew. Even the loyal elite who were with Saxon before the conquest. The Master loses his temper, has a bad day, hears some bad news and people disappear. He's unhinged, and whatever hope the Doctor had of reaching him with simple reason has long since died._

_The Master sweeps in, fashionably late, and signals with a double clap that dinner is served. He throws himself into the head chair, satisfied and smiling._

_"I just had a little chat with handsome Jack," he announces, tucking his napkin into his shirt. White wine is poured. Pale, creamy soup is served in porcelain bowls. The Doctor doesn't take his eyes from the Master's face. "Hard to believe that Torchwood didn't know the Drast had infested Japan, wouldn't you say? Was that your plan, Doctor? Send Martha to forge an alliance with them?"_

_It would have been a fairly terrible plan, the Doctor thinks. In his right mind, the Master would know that. In his right mind, the Master stopped short of dancing on anybody's grave, even if he put them in it. In his right mind, he could be everything that Professor Yana was, and so much more. So beautiful._

_"So," the Master continues, taking up his soup spoon, "Jack sends his love, and a sort of damp gurgling noise, and apparently Torchwood didn't know a blessed thing about the Drast. Would you believe it?"_

_The Doctor blinks, ignoring the food. His gaze shifts to Lucy, who demurely ladles soup into her mouth while her downcast eyes focus on nothing._

_The Master raises his glass in an expansive toast. "To the demise of Martha Jones."_

_Lucy raises her glass automatically. Sips. Puts it back exactly where it was on the tablecloth._

_The Doctor just stares at the Master, peripherally aware of how Francine clenches her fists, then deliberately slackens them and straightens her back. This too shall pass. She's magnificent._

_It's day one-hundred and ninety-four. Because the Doctor won't eat the meal or stoop to answer him, the Master finds him ungrateful and has him thrown out before dessert. He's thrown out bodily into the corridor, so that he has to crawl on his hands and knees, hampered by the too-large suit and an aged body that's spent six months setting at every feeble joint._

_From then on, he sleeps in a makeshift kennel and his meals are served in a dog bowl._

 

 

Restless, the Doctor divides his time between the beach, with its fresh air and open vistas, and the TARDIS. He's climbed the sand dunes and confirmed that this place is every bit as dull as its designation suggests. G-8439 is a week of wet Wednesdays.

The Master doesn't go far. He hasn't asked what the restraint collar will do to him, or what the rules are, but he has the general idea. He's kept a line of sight on the TARDIS, methodically surveying the location around it. The Doctor can track his life signs on the scanner, watch him when he comes near enough, but even under these conditions it makes him edgy that he doesn't know what the Master is doing out there.

What could he be doing? No, really; on this desolate beach and limited to a line of sight on the TARDIS, what could he accomplish? That's the whole point!

The irrational nerves persist. It's beyond mistrust, now. He used to think he knew what the Master was capable of, where his boundaries were. Not any more.

Jack returns after local midday, wind-chapped and sunburned. The Doctor receives an impersonal, salt-tasting kiss and a tiny, yellow seashell.

"Souvenir," Jack says wryly, and goes for a shower.

 

 

_Day two-hundred and forty-four. The Master parks the Doctor's wheelchair where he and Jack can see one another, twenty feet apart. Jack is filthy, fatigued, yet he summons a lewd wink behind the Master's back. Blue eyes twinkle with recognition and welcome. The Doctor controls his own expression, unwilling to provoke worse than whatever the Master intends to do today, but something loosens in his chest. The situation is too horrible for anything like relief or happiness, but Jack's vitality revives his spirits. You can't keep a good human down._

_The Master is taut and silent today. He doesn't bother with the jibes, the digs, the questions. He doesn't pretend that they're good mates out for a day's sport. He doesn't boast, caper or gloat. Just goes behind Jack and reaches around him to put a hunting knife against his throat. Jack sways in his chains, not so steady on his feet, projecting an indifference that even the Doctor can feel. He's finished playing games, and the Master is too. This no longer thrills him; no longer earns him so much as a twitch of a reaction from the Doctor. Jack goes through the motions of agony and death, but if anybody can ever become hardened to suffering, it's him. He's not handing the Master victory with his silent compliance; he's only waiting, like the Doctor is waiting, for this to end._

_"Anything to say, Doctor?" The Master sounds bored. Looks uneasy, even unwell. He flexes the gloved fingers of his hand to settle the hilt of the knife more securely. "No?"_

_One thing. The Doctor has only one thing to say to him._

_He meets Jack's gaze as steadily as an old man can do anything, and doesn't look away when the Master slits his throat._

 

 

The faint smell of wood smoke draws the Doctor's attention. Frowning, filled with unfamiliar suspicion, he grabs his coat and follows his nose along the beach. It's sunset, but even that manages to be uninspiring. The planet's sun sinks to the seaward horizon with the minimum of Technicolor fuss, and the temperature drops sharply.

Beyond the sand dunes, the Master has made a fire pit and collected a stash of salty, crumbling driftwood. Rather than use this for warmth or light, he's some distance away and standing perfectly still, watching the ground.

The Doctor stops at the foot of the dunes and watches him. Curious, because he's always curious, but cautious in a way that's still unfamiliar to him. The Master has abandoned his shoes and stands barefoot, feet planted with purpose, his trousers rolled up to beneath his knees. He looks as if he might begin some primal dance. Then he draws his arm back and up, very slowly, and the Doctor sees the weapon in his hand.

He runs, crashing through the impromptu campsite and beyond, not thinking for a moment. Momentum carries him into the Master, hard; carries them both down on top of the weapon, splashing into a marshy ditch. The Master's head is half submerged as they land, but he rears up and spits muddy water, tensing his muscles to keep from being forced under again by the Doctor's weight alone.

Hard to say which of them is more shocked, lying there, but the Master gets over it first.

"What are you doing?!" He struggles, kicks and twists—the Doctor's equal in bodily strength but at a disadvantage beneath him in the spongy ditch.

"What were you doing?" The Doctor hears his own voice and recoils inwardly; that rage, not righteous with certainty but hysterical with fright. He shakes the Master, slopping their wet clothes about until he lets go of the weapon in order to defend himself with his hands. "What were you doing?!" He screams the words into the other's face and then sees himself—sees this tableau as though he's still standing among the dunes. He thrusts himself away from the Master's body, horrified, and lands hard on his backside on the solid ground above the ditch.

Panting, they eye one another—the last remnant of the most ancient and refined civilisation the universe has seen. They never did have much time for the rules.

The Master sits up, pulling his hands out of the murk and grimacing as he shakes off the peaty water and clinging weed. He finds a clean patch on his left sleeve and wipes his mouth and nose with it, then spits out the taste and fixes the Doctor with a hard, unforgiving look.

"Ambush isn't your style," he accuses. After everything the Master's done, he can still do this; still convey that sense of disappointment when the Doctor falls beneath his own standards. "Am I allowed to get up or will you trigger this?" He runs a finger behind the collar, dislodging more grime.

The Doctor pushes with his feet, anchoring himself more firmly on dry land before extending his hand. The Master accepts the offer with bad grace, grabbing him and yanking his wrist hard as he squelches to his feet. He bends to retrieve his spear, and close up the Doctor can see that it's a crude thing, the end cut and bent into three prongs. He was...

"You were _fishing?_ "

"I wouldn't call them fish." The Master tosses the stick down next to the Doctor and strides off towards his camp. "They taste like chicken."

The Doctor gets up, limbs weak in the aftershock of that adrenaline rush. Danger he's used to; action, reaction, peril and impending doom, all of that, but physical aggression... He'd like to think that's beneath him. The Master knows that only too well, and that the Doctor didn't think of triggering the collar, or of giving him the benefit of the doubt

Back in the circle of firelight, the Master is gutting small, greyish creatures that look like equal parts frog and fish. He holds a sliver of obsidian glass between thumb and forefinger, delicate as he works, casting the innards into the fire pit and skewering each disembowelled creature on a stick.

The Doctor crouches on the other side of the flames, glad of the heat as the night air finds out the wet patches in his clothing. The Master, less than half-dressed by his normal standards and wet all over, doesn't seem to notice the chill.

"Now I know something," the Master says, threading the last of his catch onto the stick and propping it on the spit he's made above the fire pit. "Now I know you're scared."

"I never said I wasn't." The Doctor considers the flames, the efficient way the Master has constructed his camp and gathered resources. "If I wasn't terrified of what you might do, do you think I'd resort to that?" He points to the collar, still exposed at the Master's throat. "Or any of this? Someone has to stop you."

"And that someone is you."

"Who else? There's nothing wrong with being scared."

"It's weak." The Master spits the word, as though weakness is the worst blasphemy he can think of.

"No, it isn't." He lowers himself to the sand, feeling almost as old as he did aboard the _Valiant_. "Using fear as an excuse is weak. What I just did was weak. I'm sorry."

"Spare me."

"There's just us now. I don't think we can spare each other if we try."

"So... what?" The Master spreads his arms. "This? For the rest of our natural lives?"

"It doesn't have to be like that. You know it doesn't."

The Master doesn't dignify that with an answer. He selects a long stick from his pile of driftwood and uses it to prod at the embers.

Funny. The Doctor's had a whole year to look at him, yet somehow, he feels like he's failed to see anything at all. Too busy looking for the man he used to know, and unable or unwilling to accept that this is the new reality. This man is the Master, and the Doctor feels that he's only just starting to believe that.

He looks as much at home turning hunted meat on a spit as he did on the command deck of the Valiant, ruler of the world. The suit, the polish, the poise, the extravagance of gesture and ambition; none of that defines him. Wouldn't it be strange if, beneath all that, he more closely resembles the man the Doctor once called friend than he has in centuries?

Beneath all that _and_ the frothing insanity, that is.

The Doctor takes a deep breath and pulls himself together. The frog-fish things are starting to smell like barbecued chicken as they cook.

He looks up at the night sky with its scattering of perfect stars. Uninhabited worlds have that going for them—no light pollution. Every star is crisp and perfect against a velvet backdrop. Maybe there is something here that's worth seeing.

"Tell me about Gallifrey." That snaps his attention right back—the quiet way the Master asks.

"No." Another fraction gets added to the weight of guilt in his chest. "I told you everything that matters."

"I have a right to know."

"No. You weren't there. You really don't." He doesn't say that in anger or resentment. Anyone who was there by the end was a madman or a monster, and the Doctor puts himself right at the top of both lists for what he did that day. Friend, fallen friend or foe—he doesn't wish the last days of the Time War on anyone. One of them escaped, put himself beyond its reach and survived untainted, and that's good.

That has to be a good thing. Doesn't it?

"I'll guess, then." The Master leans back on his elbows, throwing his face half into shadow. "You were blood-soaked by the time I left. The High Command thought you were a liability and the High Council thought you were insane."

He doesn't have to sit here. Listen to this. Have his deeds picked over by a man who chose to devote his life to self-interest and destruction.

The Doctor leans back too, burying his fingers in the cooling sand. The Master's look is shrewd as he brings his undeniable brilliance to bear upon the question of the Doctor's guilt.

"You won the battles, we all did, but we were still losing the war. You saw allies fall at every turn. Companions. Friends. Oh, that must've killed you every time, especially when it was your fault."

"Yep." The Doctor allows him that. The Master inclines his head, graciously acknowledging the concession.

"The High Council were out of their depth. Rassilon was completely out of his never-dying tree. So... so..." His fingertips drum against the sand, both hands at once, following the beat of four. The Doctor holds his breath, waiting for his conclusion, but instead the Master jerks his body upright and gives the spit a half-turn. He's grown tired of the game. "You'll tell me," he says, chipper. "Who else can give you absolution? Not hunky Jack, although I did hear tell that he's _tremendously_ talented with his mouth, so I could see the appeal if he wasn't... well." He waves a hand as if, after all that unkindness and spite, he's too dainty to mention what Jack is.

The Doctor doesn't answer. The words wash over him. The cruelty. He's used to that, to waiting out the Master's petty displays. He and Jack are both as immune as it's possible to get—inoculated hard and often by that year of captivity. He can't brush away the notion that absolution could be sought and offered, though. He's hoped for forgiveness, for the Master's personal forgiveness and that their grief could be something shared, but not for that. Not for a day when he might open his eyes from dreams that don't burn and scream, because some undeserved gift of absolution lets him forgive himself.

"I took no pleasure in it." It costs him to say even that. Even in the broadest terms—to speak of or to think about that day. It costs him. "That's what you really want to know, isn’t it? If I became like you when I did it." He shakes his head, holding the Master's gaze. "No. I didn't."

"What a waste." The Master leans forward, intent, intense. Intimate. Eyes glittering in firelight. "That really is _such_ a waste, Doctor."

The Doctor swallows, unable to look away. He can help, he knows he can—with the madness, with the drumbeat that drives the Master to extremes that would once have shamed him. But what then? The Time Lords brought him back to fight a war. They brought him back because it costs him nothing to kill, and because he's a genius who can think of brand new ways of doing it. What did they have planned for him afterwards? Imprisonment? Execution? Or just to turn him loose on the universe all over again, older and wiser and with a full set of regenerations in hand?

He blinks, feeling the Master at the periphery of his mind. Not an assault this time; only a touch. Like holding out your hand, uncertain of how the gesture will be received.

"What is it you want?" he asks. Pleads, if he's honest, because he's never known that.

The Master tilts his head slightly, his mind still held out like an offering.

"Use my name," he coaxes, and the whisper against his thoughts fills with such an honest longing that the Doctor doesn't deny him.

"Master." Well, it is his name. He leans nearer the flames. "What is it you want, really? All this conquest, all these mad plans, all these allies and weapons and easy options that you must know better than to rely on, because you're so clever. What's it all for?"

Taken aback, the Master retreats. Mind and body together; he leans back again and looks bewildered.

"For? It's not _for_ anything." For just a second, he looks genuinely hurt, almost hunted. "It's my life." Then the fragile moment passes and the Master's eyes are stone. "Go away. I'm not sharing my space-chicken with you. Go and eat Crunch-o-Loops and jam. Or Captain Jack." He flings a scoop of sand and stones across the fire, aiming to miss, more agitated every second the Doctor fails to move. "Go on, piss off! Just piss off!"

The Doctor gets to his feet and walks away without a backward glance. He promised he'd leave the Master alone and he intends to keep that promise. But he's learned something, sitting there all damp and ashamed and daunted; he's touched a nerve, exposing something that the Master wants to be alone with in the dark.

That's something new.


	8. Celestial Bodies

Things don't get easier when the Master goes native on G-8439.

"Leave him be," is all the Doctor says about it. It sounds like an order. He's so down, so shut-in, that Jack wants to know what he's missed. The Doctor won't talk about it, and won't let himself be distracted either. When Jack tries to hold him or to start anything, he twists himself away, expressionless and forbidding.

You can believe how ancient he is when he does that. Whatever you give him echoes back at you out of a darkness, a stillness that's hard to fathom. You can't reach him there.

Jack's seen this before—the old Doctor, the other Doctor, those times when he retreated into brooding silence. The first time, Rose caught Jack's arm and said, confidential, 

"Leave him. He says just to leave him when this happens." But he could see how much it worried her; how she didn't know what to do; how relieved she always was when the Doctor shook the black mood off and came back to them, talkative and busy and open for hugs.

After a few weeks aboard, when he thought he understood the pattern and knew the man, Jack followed him one time. They saved a city but they'd lost a new friend, and nothing could make the Doctor smile. He stormed back inside the TARDIS and threw them into flight without a word, without a destination, then walked away from his friends. Jack figured he needed perspective or someone he could talk to. But when he found the Doctor, he realised that nothing would penetrate; that he was looking at trauma far deeper than fresh grief or self-recrimination. So, he sat there, on a metal landing at the top of a dizzying spiral staircase over a sheer drop, and he waited. The Doctor sat on the top step, left shoulder slumped against the railing, his head resting on the cold metal.

It was hours before he moved. Another hour before he spoke. Jack never got the feeling that the man just wished he'd go away. More like he didn't know how to express relief at not being so utterly alone. A gut feeling that he shouldn't go. So, Jack stayed and waited it out, loyal. He'd never been that before.

"How many people have you killed, Captain?" Usually, the Doctor's questions were pointed, accusing. This one wasn't. The Doctor shifted around, dangled his legs over the drop and rested his forehead and hands against the slender pillar in front of him.

"I don't know." Jack was honest without thinking. That was becoming a habit already. "Some. More than I needed to just to survive. But those two years I'm missing, I think... a lot?" He hung his head, ashamed of what he feared was true, and of what half-formed flashbacks and deep nightmares told him in abstract tones of blood. "Too many."

The Doctor nodded, not judging him for what he couldn't remember doing. He was quick to judge, then—quick to thrust anyone to arm's length if they disappointed him, but he wasn't unfair.

"Me too."

Jack waited, leaving him space to say more, but when the Doctor finally did speak, he was off on a tangent and almost back to his usual, purposeful self.

"What's your psi ranking?"

"What?"

Blue eyes pinned him down, impatience and compassion all in one look. The Doctor tapped his own temple.

"Psi ranking, soldier. I want to have a look for your missing two years."

"Not sure. Above 'non-existent'. Below 'significant'. Hard to say, 'cause I was actually doing oral favours for the examiner. She had three _gorgeous_ —"

"Come here." The Doctor turned to face him, crossing his legs under him and beckoning with both hands.

Jack went to him, sitting cross-legged opposite him on the grating, not sure whether he was about to get hit, kissed or interrogated. He was younger then—nervy and defensive around the Doctor, with too much to prove, and more smitten with every day that passed. The Doctor saw all of it in his face, right there, and his smile was kind and sad.

"Block me hard if I hurt you," he commanded, bringing his hands towards Jack's face. "It's been a long time since I did this and never in this body, so I might be rusty." Jack nodded, automatically. "Hard," the Doctor repeated, sternly. "I mean it. Don't mess about, defend yourself. The size of my brain, yours might explode. Think of the mess in here."

"Yes, sir."

The Doctor's hands cupped his face, cold rather than cool. Fingertips splayed to catch him at the temple and behind the ear. A tickle inside his mind, then the Doctor's absolute focus and clarity, light as a feather, searching his past for moments of discontinuity and discarding everything else as private. Jack shut his eyes, awestruck and loving it.

It didn't hurt him, not for a second, but it must've hurt the Doctor. Jack let him chase the missing time until the hands against his cheeks started to shake, then pushed him out hard for his own good. Seeing the bleak face streaked with tears, Jack caught the Doctor behind the neck and impulsively dragged him close, a clumsy grab, protective in a way he'd never felt before. A physical way, immediate and so passionate, but not sexual. Okay, that too. Totally that, but separate. The lesser component of a feeling Jack treasures and still doesn't even have a name for.

He's felt that way ever since. Not territorial, not jealous or possessive. He wants to stand between the Doctor and harm, and he likes who that makes him into. Made him brave enough to stay when the Master took the Doctor prisoner aboard the _Valiant_ ; to stay by his side rather than let him face that alone. That's loyalty. Maybe that's love.

It doesn't mean he always obeys the Doctor's orders.

 

 

The Master has a campsite on the landward side of the TARDIS, past the sand dunes. It puts him out of visual range on the scanner, but they've been tracking his life signs. For three days now, the other Time Lord has wandered the marshes and the beach, avoiding the two of them at all costs. At night, the temperature falls below freezing, but the Master sleeps out there rather than return to the TARDIS. Jack hopes something he really needs shrivels up and drops off.

He takes a care package out across the dunes, wanting a good look at the prisoner and what he's been up to. The Doctor might trust a shock collar and a gentleman's agreement, but Jack trusts surveillance and his gut.

Seeing his approach, the Master stops whatever he was doing at the edge of his camp and stands up straight, waiting, getting in the first barb.

"Did he send you to play fetch?" He's lost weight, or he's dehydrated, or both. Maybe he found fresh water out here, but if he did he's been drinking it out of his cupped hands. The meticulous close haircut that he had seen to twice a week aboard the _Valiant_ has started to grow out. On top of a few days of beard growth and the dirt-stained clothes, it makes him look wild.

"Just between you and me," Jack says, dropping the bundle he's carrying next to the fire, "you're really starting to let yourself go."

"What's that?" The Master eyes a rolled-up sleeping bag and a cooler full of rations as if he suspects they're a cunningly disguised bomb.

"Care package."

"From him?"

"Nah, he's a lousy jailer. Not me. You know what we get through the cells at Torchwood. Lost aliens at the peak of their mating cycle, humans driven crazy by stuff that fell through the Rift, Weevils—"

"Excuse me?"

"About so high." Jack holds up a hand, flat, at Weevil head height. "They live in the sewers, eat shit, sensitive to Rift activity and seriously need some dental work. We're always rounding them up for trying to snack on the peaceful citizens of Cardiff. I _know_ you got the memo at the Ministry."

Appeased by the information, the Master relaxes his posture, nodding. With recognition, Jack realises. _'Damn. We never could find out what species they are.'_ Like he's going to ask.

"I see."

"Seen one prisoner," Jack says cheerfully, "seen 'em all. Torchwood protocol. You get fed, you get watered, and unless you're really causing trouble you don't get kicked in the reproductive area or Tasered in the face. I'm a great jailer."

While he's talking, Jack takes a careful look at the Master. Banter aside, he promised to help the Doctor, and that doesn't just mean keeping the Master under guard. It means getting on board with the Doctor's plan to fix him. If fresh air and bushmeat was going to start doing him some good, you'd think it'd show by now. The man just looks tired, dirty and annoyed.

"When you're done playing castaway," he says, turning to go, "I'll help you talk him into stopping someplace post-industrial for some real food."

It's not what you'd call a bonding experience, being repeatedly murdered by a sadistic dictator, but it did give Jack plenty of time to figure out where the guy's buttons are. Learning how not to provoke him was an equal education in how to do just that. His presence, aboard the TARDIS and in the Doctor's life, offends the Master. Knowing he's sharing the Doctor's bed seems to add a little something else, and Jack hasn't figured out what to call that, yet. Not envy, exactly, but something like it. Something that eats away inside and makes him reveal his hand too easily.

But not today. He's a madman, but that doesn't make him a fool.

 

 

The Doctor comes to his room the next night, knocking softly enough on the half-open door not to wake him if he's sleeping. He isn't, just resting in the dark, fully dressed and staying alert for trouble.

"Come on in." Jack sits up, rubbing his face and conscious of a day's stubble. Half the time the Doctor wouldn't notice if someone turned blue, let alone notice a bad shave; the other half he's so acutely aware of minute detail that Jack can feel him exploring tiny scars, or hunting down freckles that even Jack didn't know were there. Depends on his mood.

The Doctor sits next to him, next to his legs, and Jack sees that he's all dressed up—the suit, the tie, the coat. For him, this is morning and he's heading out. What's he been doing all this time? It probably didn't include sleeping.

"I left you to manage," the Doctor says, looking at the wall, or at nothing. "It won't happen again."

The man has the weirdest ideas about when he needs to apologise. Jack shakes his head, trying to sort his questions into order of priority. He'll probably only get to ask one.

"What did he do?"

The Doctor drops his head back, eyes closed, and gives a mirthless, breathy little laugh. Ianto calls that a 'prayer to the God of Absurdity'. Jack waits for his answer, for the Doctor to look at him.

"He didn't do anything. I did." After a ragged breath, the Doctor forces himself to say it. "I attacked him, unprovoked."

Jack waits some more, because there must _be_ more. The Doctor does not attack somebody without provocation, or under extreme provocation either. But that's the point, Jack realises, seeing how downcast the confession leaves him. That's what's got the man so shaken up that he'd retreat into himself, into his ship, like it's the old days and he just can't deal.

"Why?"

"I saw a weapon in his hand." Before Jack can seize on that, he goes on, quickly. "That's what I _saw_ , but he was just hunting those... those _things_ that live in the marsh. I just—"

"Reacted?" Jack shakes his head. "You know what that is." What does he want—permission to feel his own pain? A lecture on post-traumatic stress, or plain common sense? He puts his hand against the Doctor's chest to feel his hearts beating. "It kills me. How angry I am about what he's done. Right here. When I breathe in, it hurts. Here." He curls his fingers against the Doctor's tie, the words fading to a whisper when his throat closes up. He takes a deep breath, trying to slow it down and breathe out the emotion that's choking him. "I can use that anger. Face it, _own_ it. If I pretend it doesn't matter then it's gonna control me."

He didn't know, Jack sees in his face. He really didn't know any of that was going on inside the man he's travelling with. Sleeping with. Doesn't he know by now how humans deal with trauma, and fear, and mortal danger? Or is it just that he thinks of Jack as different now—inhuman? Post-human? Sub-human? _'God.'_

"I'm not..." For the first time, the Doctor wants to talk. Jack can see it—the frustration that's starting to turn into ideas he wants to say aloud. "I leave things behind." Jack pulls his hand away from the Doctor's chest, revealing everything with a sharp intake of breath, but the Doctor catches hold of his retreating hand. "And, yes, people. For the same reason, but not the reason I ran away and left you. That was the act of a coward. Nothing more."

Of all the ugly names Jack called him across all those years, and there were plenty, 'coward' never made the list.

"Go on," he says, gently, because if he doesn't, the Doctor's never going to try again.

"It's not the same for me. This." He puts his palm against Jack's chest, where he described the pain, and he rubs as if that could take it away. "Words aren't—" A noisy sigh, then he regroups and tries again. Jack can see the sheer effort involved. "But I should be able to control my reactions. Always, no matter what, can you understand that? No matter what he's done, what I've seen him do to the people I care about, I control my actions."

Shame, then. Guilt. Revulsion at falling short of his own ideals. Jack wants to kiss it all away, like the old days.

"Did you hurt him?"

"Only his pride."

"Then do your thing and move on. I'm not buying that, by the way—that it's Time Lord 'normal' to bury serious trauma. You'd all be as nuts as the guy on the beach."

"Who said anything about the Time Lords?" The Doctor gives his face a tap, a little mock slap that turns into a caress when he encounters Jack's stubble and gets curious and tactile. "That's just me." He grins. It's the first genuine smile Jack's seen since before the Master conquered the Earth. "I'm unique."

The man has a talent for evading a serious conversation, starting with that crazy grin that comes out of nowhere. Jack's glad to see it, even if it means the chat is over. Things must be getting better if the Doctor can laugh at himself again.

Jack steals a kiss, a second-hand taste of the beautiful zest for life that the Doctor's been missing for too long. The Doctor leans into it and closes his eyes, seeking more. That need of his, it's never been desire. Not straight-up physical wanting the way Jack feels it, like an itch he'd love to scratch or a craving for the satisfaction of orgasm. Contact, though; the Doctor craves that, and he gives his trust in a way that's humbling to share. Jack's still learning what's new about him and what's left over from before, but to openly signal that he wants sex—that's all new.

He can't remember the Doctor ever being in his room before—not this one, not his old one that stayed untouched after the Doctor left him behind. In the old days, sex was wherever they met up when it all got too much; against walls, over a table, over the console—always hurried, quick and dirty. The Doctor was solid, reassuring even while he was falling apart in Jack's arms. Held him tight or not at all. Now he's something ephemeral that could slip through your grasp, and he's gentle. Patient, playful; savouring every touch and prolonging their mutual pleasure instead of plunging after brute catharsis.

"Stay," Jack whispers, when they break the kiss. "Please." He's never asked. This has always been on the Doctor's terms—the old ones and the new ones. On the other hand, they never used to talk this way, or even try, and the Doctor's not the only one who's changed.

The Doctor doesn't slip away, but he doesn't come to bed either. He goes after Jack's arousal with some of the old directness, but gently, left hand behind Jack's head, their mouths sliding together between shallow, excited breaths. He manages belt, buttons and bunched cloth one-handed, without fumbling, not touching Jack until he can touch bare skin and then, only then, pulling back to watch the reaction when he grips Jack's half-hard cock.

"Tell me how you feel?" It's no sentimental sweet nothing. It's practically an order—a demand for information that the Doctor wants and doesn't have. Jack swallows to moisten his throat and considers the question with the half of his brain that's still functioning. His cock fills out in the Doctor's hand, getting all ahead of them. "Tell me, Jack." His voice goes playful, but he's deadly serious too. Jack takes stock. His hands are planted behind him on the mattress, supporting his weight; he's breathing hard, his face is hot, prickling sweat on his forehead and upper lip. He's turned on, all hot and cold tingles converging on his core, but for as long as the Doctor keeps that hand still and doesn't kiss him, the feeling is more hope than pleasure. "Tell me how you feel."

"About fifteen again," he laughs, shaky and elated, and wins himself another glimpse of that reckless grin before the Doctor goes down on him with no warning at all. Jack's arms go weak and he falls back on the bed, caught between laughter and a long, heartfelt groan of pleasure.

He manages to coordinate his body long enough to get his hand on the back of the Doctor's head, so he can feel with his fingers the effort that's going into making him feel this great. So he can—when he snatches a few seconds of self-control from the stupor of absolute bliss—give a little stroke to show his appreciation. So he can trust himself to give the guy some warning when he's almost there, but the Doctor ignores the urgent little push against his temple completely, like he ignores most warnings, and just redoubles his efforts and swallows until Jack's done.

"Oh... God." That's unoriginal, but it's the best he can do—spent, panting and trembling all over, seeing stars like nobody ever did that to him before. "You are _really_ good at that."

"I'm good at everything." The Doctor's voice is warm, calm. Jack drags his eyes open to see the fond, self-satisfied smile that matches it. Then he makes his face serious. "Two words, Captain. Remember them."

"Yeah?"

The Doctor bends over him, taps his nose conspiratorially and whispers, "Respiratory bypass."

Oh... Oh, that is _cheating_.

He thinks that's it, that the Doctor's had his fun and is about to leave, but it's not like that. He goes on sitting there, stroking Jack's hair and face in a way that becomes gradually more absent-minded. Reciprocation isn't on his mind, that's obvious, but Jack hasn't got a clue what is. Moments like these are important. Took Jack more than one lifetime to figure that out and take it to heart—the quiet moment after you make love when there's still that bubble of trust and togetherness. Bask in that, be present in that and for who you're sharing it with, because it can't last. Nothing lasts.

Finally, the Doctor notices what he's doing and takes his hand away, frowning slightly at himself. For just a second, Jack thinks he's going to start talking again—really talking—but then he doesn't, and just says as he's leaving,

"Get some sleep." 

 

 

He's losing track of the days. They're in a kind of limbo while they wait out the Master's petulance, and while the TARDIS sticks to a twenty-four-hour cycle, the planet outside has other ideas. Mornings are optional. Yawning over a coffee—and god, but he'd give anything for a decent cup—Jack consults the scanner and notes that it's their fourth actual morning on G-8439. He's slept almost eighteen hours. _'Wow.'_

There's a lesson he forgets too often—that you can be too busy looking out for other people, and neglect yourself until you become a liability to the people you're trying to protect. Even if you're immortal.

Jack's not above admitting it; he likes the way the Doctor's needed to lean him these past couple of weeks. Not because the Doctor's hurting, never, but because he's trusted with something the Doctor would rather not let anyone see, ever.

He could've let Rose see. Jack never knew whether it was because she was so young or because the Doctor was so in love with her, but he hid the worst of himself from her like it made him ashamed. With Rose, he never wanted to look back, but the past was right there at his heels the whole time. She knew that.

She could've handled it. Not the way Jack handled it, but better, Rose's way, the same way she could make the Doctor smile when he was sad, and make him laugh when he got annoyed by travelling with a couple of 'stupid apes'.

Jack misses Rose. After all this time, he still sees her face and her smile out the corner of his eye sometimes and looks up, expecting to find her there. It's been lifetimes for Jack. He can tell it hasn't been anything like as long for the Doctor, and that the rest of his life might not be long enough.

Slight vibration against his right wrist makes him look down. He's been wearing the control unit for the Master's collar on a simple leather strap. Other than a notification when the Master went deep into the TARDIS, there's been nothing. This warning is stronger, an insistent, repeating pulse, meaning the collar is almost out of range.

Jack's spent plenty of hours out there, checking for himself that this planet has nothing of the slightest use to the Master. He couldn't sleep until he was sure. Now he's sure, so he's only mildly concerned to read that the Master is running away from the TARDIS in a straight line, keeping up an impressive four-minute-mile pace. He won't get much further before the collar gives him a warning, and that'll give him about four seconds to stop what he's doing before the collar shocks him unconscious.

He must know that, so what is he doing? Testing the range? He could've just asked. The readout blinks into the red—a straightforward visual warning accompanied by another pulse to get Jack's full attention. Four seconds later, the device chimes to alert him that the failsafe has triggered.

Suddenly, Jack's not so sanguine about the idea.

"Doctor!" He could spend hours searching the ship, but a shout usually gets the job done. Jack sends the readings from the control device to the scanner, hoping he can pick up an image of the Master's current location. No such luck. He's directly ahead of the TARDIS doors, some five-hundred metres away beyond the rocks.

Jack tugs the scanner around so that the Doctor can't miss it when he arrives, then runs out onto the beach. He'd lose no sleep if the Master drowned in the marsh, but the Doctor... He has no idea what the Doctor would do if the Master got hurt, and he really doesn't want to find out.

He hears the Doctor shout after him when he's almost to the rocks. There's a path between the outcrop and the water, but the tide is coming in; the too-warm saline rolls over the top of his boots and slows him down. He skids on strings of seaweed, vaulting the lower rocks between himself and the next stretch of open beach, and then he can see the Master. He's face-down in the sand, flung forward like he was still running full tilt when the collar shorted out his nervous system.

Falling to his knees, out of breath and aching, Jack grabs the Master's collar and pants and hauls him into the recovery position. Then he takes a few seconds to catch his breath so he can think and see straight. You'd think if somebody was going to make you immortal, they'd throw in some super-strength for good luck, but Jack feels every day of his age and winded after a hard sprint in this thin atmosphere. He's only just wiping the sweat from his eyes and reaching down to take the Master's pulse when the Doctor slides to his knees in front of them.

"What's he done, why is he--?" It's not lack of oxygen that makes the Doctor stop talking and take a few seconds; it's hysteria, or as near to it as Jack's ever seen on him. He pushes Jack's hand away from the Master's throat and checks the pulse himself, not relaxing until he's felt the double-count and convinced himself the bastard's still alive.

"He's okay," Jack promises, taken aback, but he's already cursing his own lack of foresight. If the Master had faceplanted in the ocean, in the marshes, they couldn't have reached him in time. They'll need to shorten the range. Keep a closer eye on him.

He and the Doctor sit back on their heels and finish catching their breath, neither of them taking their eyes from the fallen man.

"He doesn't look so hot." As Jack starts to register details again, he sees blood on the man's chin and crusted in his nostrils. Streaks across the back of his hands are probably dried blood as well, where he wiped his face. It's all too old to be anything to do with this fall, but it fills out the picture horribly. "This can't all be that noise inside his head."

"I think it can." The Doctor bends over and lifts the Master's eyelid, producing a little penlight from somewhere and shining it into the eye. "And more than that..." He sighs, getting quiet as he catches up with his own train of thought. "I think he did this deliberately."

 _'Well, yeah,'_ Jack thinks, irritated, but once he gets past the knee-jerk he can see what the Doctor means; the Master didn't do this because he's an unstable, manipulative piece of shit, but because he wanted to be rendered unconscious.

"But you gave him that sedative, if he—" Jack trails off, dealing with a stirring of pity that he'd rather not feel for the man who tortured him.

"Yeah."

"The collar could've killed him for all he knew."

The Doctor shuts his eyes, like he's trying to shut out the thought of the Master lying dead. He shakes his head.

"No. He knows me better than that."

"He doesn't know me at all," Jack retorts. He can see what the Doctor's thinking because it's written all over his face; if it was this bad, if the Master knows him so well, why didn't he ask for help? There are easier ways to put yourself beyond pain than this. Speaking of which... "He ought to be waking up by now."

"We should move him."

Jack glances back down the beach. The water is swirling around the base of the rocks now, cutting them off unless they want to carry the Master through thigh-deep waves or drag him over the rocks. The Doctor looks too, then looks back at the Master and jumps to his feet, black sand cascading from his clothing.

"We could—" Jack lifts his left arm, showing the vortex manipulator, but the Doctor makes a face at him.

"No, thanks. I'll bring the TARDIS. Stay with him."

Jack watches until the Doctor has scrambled safely over the lowest exposed rock to the other side, then pays attention to the Master. He doesn't move at all, and his breathing seems kind of shallow compared to the Doctor's.

He's expecting the Doctor to land a short way off, so he gasps aloud when the TARDIS materialises around them instead. It sounds as if she puts up a fight, but the Doctor wins, leaving Jack kneeling over the Master next to the console.

"Still nothing," he reports. "Is he breathing okay? I can't tell."

Without his long coat now, the Doctor crouches over them and puts his hand against the Master's chest.

"Shallow."

"The neural shock shouldn't have had a lasting effect," Jack says. His urgency startles him. It's a long time since he felt the need to excuse or justify himself to anybody, to explain his position, but he doesn't want the Doctor thinking this was payback. "I've seen you shake off worse."

"Yeah. I'll get him to the infirmary. Might not be a bad idea to scan that brain of his while he's not using it." Without looking for assistance from Jack, the Doctor lifts the Master in his arms, jolts him a couple of times to settle the load, and walks away.

You forget how strong they are—both of them. The Doctor has more upper-body strength than a human, and from what Jack's seen of the Master in action, speed and endurance are both standard issue for a Time Lord. The Doctor's feeling the weight by the time he delivers the unconscious man to a bed in the infirmary, but he's only slightly out of breath.

Jack likes watching the Doctor be a doctor. It slows him down from his normal mad pace so you can see his hands move, watch him think. He's improved his bedside manner with this regeneration; Jack has memories that involve getting bitter, extended lectures about how frail and useless human beings are, while the Doctor patched up his broken bones or stopped the bleeding. There was this one time Jack kissed a Nethentian and spent two days hallucinating from her toxins. The Doctor never left his side while he rode out the visions and then the side-effects of the vicious antitoxin; didn't insult him while he raved and puked and fought the help every step of the way. Jack learned then that if the Doctor ever stopped insulting the patient, if you woke up to find him mopping your brow and giving you a brave, sad smile, things were touch and go.

The new Doctor is as gentle a healer as he is a lover. He's even gentle as he straps the Master down on the bed. Gentle, but firm. The other Time Lord is going nowhere.

"Is there anything I can do?" Jack vividly remembers being the one tied to that bed, and it makes him edgy to see it done, even to the man who made him spend a year hanging in chains.

"Take some blood?" The Doctor indicates a range of drawers, leaving him to find the equipment he needs.

While Jack sterilises his hands, the Doctor digs a small, flat, rectangular device out of a cabinet and places it on the Master's forehead. It conforms itself instantly to the contours of the Master's brow and projects a blue holographic display above the bed. The Doctor pulls down a viewscreen, waves his screwdriver at it for a couple of seconds, and gets a detailed medical readout there.

"Neat."

"The TARDIS never got the hang of humans, but she can do a full health profile on a Time Lord. If he sits still long enough."

When was the last time the Doctor let the ship give him a check-up? Jack's willing to bet that it's been a while.

"Does that tell you why he's still unconscious?"

The Doctor pulls out his glasses and shoves them onto his face, one-handed, never taking his eyes from the screen.

"There's no damage from the shock. From the fall." Puzzled, the Doctor turns back to his patient and gingerly examines the bloody nostrils. Then back to the readout with a deepening frown. "Low body temperature, shallow respiration, limited brain activity. It's like he's keeping himself under."

Jack concentrates long enough to collect a vial of Time Lord blood, handing it to the Doctor when he's done.

"Like a trance?"

"More like a coma. A healing coma. But he could do that all by himself if he wanted to—no need to shock his entire nervous system." The Doctor makes a sound in his throat, half a groan, half a growl of frustration. He blows out his cheeks. "I dunno. He never did do things by halves."

"Crazed with pain?"

The Doctor grimaces—a look that's half doubt, half dread.

"Maybe. What could that be, though? If the stories are true then he's always had this, through every regeneration and all the other ways he's found to cling on to life. What's changed?"

"He never told you? I figured, if you two used to be friends..."

"Never said a word." Cutting that avenue of enquiry dead, the Doctor slots the vial of blood into a machine and flips a switch. "I had no idea. That means he could hide it, control it, control _himself_ , so what changed?"

There's only one man in the room who might know the answer, and he's unconscious.

Wordless, they share the job of stripping filthy, damp clothing and getting the Master something like clean. The Doctor draws a thermal sheet over him when they're done, then goes to look at the blood analysis.

"Anything?" Jack almost hopes he'll find something. Something obvious, something they can fix with drugs or surgery or industrial-grade psychotherapy.

"Strange cellular energy readings. Unusually high levels of artron energy." Scratching his left ear, the Doctor works his way through screen after screen of information, faster than Jack can read a word. "No cellular degradation, though. Some nutritional imbalances, no surprise there—" The Doctor goes silent, taking out his frustration on a monitor that isn't giving him what he needs until he stops stabbing roughly at it with his finger and just knocks it aside with the heel of his hand. "Nothing!"

Too much to hope for. When he's with the Doctor, sometimes, Jack can believe in a universe that's fair and kind. It isn't, though. If there's anyone who's due a miracle then it's not the Master.

"I'm sorry." Jack means that. If you're the last of your kind, then suddenly you're not, suddenly there's another person after all who shares that past and that pain, does it matter who they are and what they've done? You'd want them to be okay. You'd _need_ that, because you'd need them.

Jack grips the Doctor's shoulder to steady him. He's already asked the question and the Doctor wouldn't answer—what happens if this is how it's going to be, forever? It's not that he's lying to himself. The Doctor just assumes that there's a way for him to beat this. Does he have it in him to admit that he might be wrong about that?

"Listen, I told him I'd talk to you about getting some decent food." The Doctor gives him an affronted look, but Jack stands firm. "Start with the basics. Make him safe, make him comfortable. It's all we can do."

The Doctor doesn't love getting unsolicited advice. He hears Jack out, expressionless, then lets his gaze slide over to where the Master lies unconscious.

"The basics," he repeats, flatly. Jack guesses that he's thinking about the _Valiant,_ about when the tables were turned; about how they were treated, and the rations they survived on at the Master's whim. Maybe, just maybe, he's finally admitting to himself that the Master is his prisoner now, and comparing the one situation to the other.

"I'll sit with him first," Jack volunteers, and drags up a stool beside the occupied bed before the Doctor gets a chance to argue. "I'll call you if there's any change."

They glare at one another and Jack wins.

Just this once, Jack hopes the Doctor will go spend some time alone, thinking about the things that hurt him most, and deciding what the hell they're supposed to do next. 

One thing's for sure—they can't go on like this.


	9. General Relativity

The Doctor is the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes. That alone causes enough dismay that the Master shuts them again at once, and stays that way until he's ready to face reality. 

Reality, unfortunately, still includes the Doctor when he tries again. 

Yes, he's still there, wedged into a low-backed chair, legs stuck out in front of him, arms folded across his chest, staring vacantly across the room. A yo-yo dangles, forgotten, from his left hand. 

The Master wants to demand to know if he's meditating like that, if he's lost all sense of decorum and discipline since the Academy, but when he takes a breath to speak he finds that his throat is parched. The sound he makes is enough to attract attention, in any case. 

"There you are!" The Doctor jumps to his feet and looms over him, first with a grin of relief, then with a grimace of sympathy. Neither is welcome. "Ooh, you look rough. Take it easy." 

He's flat on his back and, for the moment at least, seems quite unable to move. How much easier is he expected to take it, short of succumbing to the grave? When his voice fails him again, when a throb behind his eyes leaves him dizzy and nauseated, the Master fixes the Doctor with a glare and sends the message straight into his stupid brain, instead. 

_"What. The. Hell?"_

The Doctor practically falls over in surprise, a step backwards lining him up with the chair again, so that he lands in it with a bounce, still gawping. 

The Master rolls his eyes, then shuts them again. He's not sure what's going on here, what's _been_ going on, but he has no intention of dealing with stupidity, or looking any longer than he needs to at that ridiculous baby-face. 

He loses time between that decision and the next one. Blinks his way into consciousness, his chest burning with a sense of alarm that doesn't seem anchored to current events. 

"What—?" he splutters, then chokes on the dryness in the back of his throat and starts coughing until someone sits him up and makes him take a sip of water between gasps. 

Two key pieces of information filter through the fog inside his skull. One, that the Torchwood freak is touching him. Two, that his wrists, legs and ankles are firmly attached to the frame of the bed with padded leather straps. The ones at his wrists have some leeway, and another that must've been across his chest has been released. 

And the Torchwood freak is _touching him_. The Master struggles until the man lets go of him, at which point he flops back against the bed as if his bones have turned to water. 

"Choke then," says Captain Jack, wiping spilled water from his sleeve with a towel. "See if I care. The Doctor's not this big a baby." 

"Touch me again and I'll amputate something," the Master snarls, but the reality of his situation is becoming clear even as he says it. He's completely restrained, he's inside the Doctor's TARDIS, and it's been some time since he last moved under his own steam. He's in no position to follow through on his threat, but just saying it makes him feel better, with the welcome bonus of getting Harkness the hell away from him. "I'm sure I can locate something that won't grow back, if I look hard enough." 

"No to the water, then." Setting the cup down on a cabinet with a pointed click, Harkness goes to the door—infirmary, the Master registers—and yells for the Doctor. "Sleeping Beauty is awake again!" 

One word freezes the Master's guts. _'Again?'_ He searches his mind, finding nothing under 'recent events' in between the black beach and waking up to find Harkness there. Alarm solidifies into panic and he wraps his aching hands around the straps at his wrist, clutching tightly. 

"Let me up!" Too loud. He starts to cough again—a shallow, dry choking splutter that doesn't ease until the Doctor lifts his head and lets him take another sip of water. 

"Calm down," he's urging, speaking as he would to a frightened child. "I've got you." 

"Fuck you." 

"Deep breaths," the Doctor advises, with more asperity. "I wouldn't waste them on language if I were you." 

"Fuck you and the Lord President," he wheezes, eyes streaming. "And the Lord President's wife, with his rod of fucking Presidential office!" 

"Oh, he's a charmer," Harkness remarks from somewhere. "Is he speaking English or was Gallifrey a heck of a lot livelier than you make it sound?" 

"Leave it, Jack." The Doctor eases the Master's head back down. "Just calm down. I know you're scared, but you're perfectly safe. Get your breath back and I'll explain everything." 

Grudgingly, the Master complies with the voice of reason. It happens to belong to the Doctor, and to come hand in hand with being patronised like a time-tot, but there's not much he can do about that for now. 

"Get rid of him," he whispers, not to spare the freak's blushes but to spare his own throat. 

"Jack?" 

There's something in the air, a current of tension that hums against his empathic perceptions, and then Harkness goes far enough away that his continuing existence doesn't feel like having your brain gouged out with a rusty implement. The Master's clenched muscles surrender all at once, his hands going limp around the leather. It gets easier to breathe. 

"Have you let that freak into your mind?" he demands, doing the best he can to convey suspicion with a whisper. 

"Why do you say that?" Unruffled, the Doctor sits on the edge of the bed, his weight depressing the mattress beside the Master's hip. 

"I can feel him disapproving." He says the words without thinking, then, surprised, stops to think about them. Was that it, that little ebb and flow of emotion in the room just then? 

"Well, he's not mind-blind. And he really doesn't like you." The Doctor sniffs. "Can't think why after the way you tortured him all those months, tried using him to get to me—"

"Sarcasm ill becomes you, Doctor." Weary, nauseated, the Master turns his face away—the only escape open to him. "Why am I tied down?" 

"Calm now?" 

"Yes." 

"Three days ago, you went for a brisk run along a beach on G-8439, ignored the warning pulse the collar gave you, and let it knock you senseless. We brought you back here." 

The Doctor waits. The Master can feel his expectation. Annoyance about that keeps a lid on his own rising terror. 

"And?" 

"And it took you this long to come 'round properly. I thought you were doing it on purpose." 

Gritting his teeth, the Master shakes the wrist straps. Wishes they were chains so that there'd be a dramatic rattle of metal on metal. 

"And?!" 

"And I strapped you down to stop you doing yourself any more harm. Don't worry, we've all been there. Practically a rite of passage aboard my TARDIS. Twice, for Captain Jack. He never learns when to stop at 'hello'." 

"Stop blathering!" 

This time, it only takes a sip of water to quell the coughing. The Doctor puts a pillow behind his head before letting him lie down again. From the new elevation, the Master can take in more unwelcome detail. Beneath a dressing on his right forearm, a tube is delivering fluid directly into a vein. Beneath the thin thermal blanket that preserves his modesty, another tube is carrying away urine. 

"If you let Captain Torchwood touch my prick," he says, icily, "I'm going to push you right into a black hole." 

The Doctor blushes. He actually blushes, a pink flush creeping up from his collar and flaring out across his nose and ears. 

"Are you always like this when you're not feeling well?" 

"Like what?" 

"Foul mouthed and childish." 

"No, that's when I'm infuriated by self-congratulating idiots who chain me to a bed and violate me." 

The pinkness fades from the Doctor's face. The chill that settles over him is terrible to behold, and the Master can feel it as clearly as he can see it. He can't entirely block it from his mind, and that's most terrible of all. The Doctor shouldn't be able to make inroads into his mind, even when he's trying. 

"Don't you even raise the subject of violation," the Doctor warns, so quietly that only a fool would fail to listen. The Master is no fool. "Don't you dare, after the things you've done to Jack, to me, to half the Earth. You're a lot of things that I can't admire, but hypocrite has never been one of them." 

"You should know." 

The old standoff, except that 'hypocrite' is usually the description on his own lips. The Master opts for staring at the nearest available wall, which happens to be the one opposite the foot of the bed. 

"Finished?" 

Only because he's too tired, too lightheaded to continue the battle they've begun here; only because he can barely see or hear over the pounding of the drums. The Master nods, grinding his teeth together with the effort of backing down. 

"What's in the drip?" 

"Just life support. No drugs. I was going to try a stimulant later, if you hadn't woken up." 

Hard to believe, but a few moments of internal checks confirm what the Doctor is saying. He hasn't been drugged, and he has been without food and drink for several days. He's weaker than he should be if they've kept him on fluids. 

"I need glucose," he says, then turns his face away from the Doctor and closes his eyes. There have been days—years, centuries—when all he wanted was to see the Doctor's face. Here and now, he can't stand the sight of him. 

"We've been shopping. Jack has needs, apparently. Beef stew? Egg and soldiers?" 

The Doctor survives the next ten seconds only because the Master's limbs are completely immobilised. Breathing through clenched teeth, battling a wave of nausea and a headache that's trying to consume his last shreds of reason, he forces out one further word. 

"Glucose." 

"Right." Deflated, the Doctor does as he's told, switching out the bag of saline with glucose. 

You'd think, then, that he'd go away and give a man some peace. But no. The Doctor pulls up a chair (wasn't he there before?) and parks himself beside the bed. 

After a while, the Doctor says, 

"I never did let Jack into my mind. Had a peek at his, once. He can shield if he's hurting you." 

It takes far too long to process the unsolicited information. This—the straps, the pain, the room, the voice that won't stop talking—has begun to feel unreal, remote from his body, and he knows the next step. The drums, the drums come and swallow him alive until he's nothing but their vessel. 

"I need..." But what? What is there? 

The Doctor is beside him in an instant, pitifully eager to help. He reaches over, hand hesitating a few inches away from making contact with his face. 

"This?" 

Look how he wants it. Standing there, soul bared, hand shaking. Even this thankless chore feeds the starving need in him. It occurs to the Master that if he holds out, stays silent, the Doctor might beg _him_ for this. 

But it hurts. He nods, then shuts his eyes tight so that it isn't quite as real when the Doctor's right hand presses against his forehead, his mind projecting a scaffolding of stillness and discipline into the maelstrom. 

His intellect grabs for the lifeline without consulting his self-respect. 

The assistance is impersonal, functional, but the Doctor lacks fine control when it comes to his emotions. As his reasoning mind reconstructs itself around the borrowed framework, the Master feels a ghost of what the Doctor is feeling. It's not what you'd expect—not that piteous pleading that you sometimes see in his face and behind his tell-tale eyes. Not shame, not loathing. Not the anger that looks as if it could set galaxies aflame. There's simple purpose in what he's doing, or at least he thinks so, and the Doctor unknowingly shares wisps of relief, determination. Effort. This isn't easy for him, this narrow focus, and as he begins to feel better, to solidify his own control, the Master reaches back along the connection to explore the reason why. 

They lock gazes, the Doctor gasping aloud, his clumsy shields thrust into the foreground of his mind. That wall around his Self should be an absolute, a flawless bubble, serene in its perfection, but you can feel him scattering, putting out fires individually, all while mastering his panic at having the weakness exposed like this. 

How long has he been alone? 

The Master asks the question in the simplest terms, the way they'd share thoughts as children; idea and emotion built around a picture and a word, hooked with enquiry. The Doctor's answer, shocked out of him by remembrance, is childlike simplicity itself—emotive, uninformative, absolute truth. 

"Too long." His eyes brim with tears. 

The Master slides his own defences into the mental space between them, muting the already minimal connection. Once again this is impersonal; the Doctor proffering a calming construct of stability and control, of passive coolness and restraint. He knows what that should look like, even if his own discipline is weak to the point of failure. 

Almost gently, the Master pushes the Doctor out of his consciousness before somebody gets hurt. That isn't how he wants to break the Doctor. It never has been. It'd be too easy. 

"Last of the Time Lords," he says, and doesn't know if it's awe he's feeling, or horror, or shame on behalf of their entire species. "Just look at us." 

The Doctor sinks into the chair, hands hanging limp between his knees, shoulders stooped and head bowed. Good. He should be ashamed of himself. 

The Master spends a while exploring the taste of his own pity—rusty and rotten, like old blood. It's as good a distraction as any from the pain, and the situation lacks better options. He'd bait the Doctor, but he's too tired—tired in his bones, meat and marrow. For one fraction of a second, he wants this all to end; the fighting, the rage, the sheer effort involved in dragging himself to face front and begin again each time the Doctor destroys his ambitions. 

Why does he always have to do that? 

He drifts, a sense of passing time eluding him. At some point the Doctor sticks a thermometer in his ear. Lifting his hand to swat the intrusion away, he rediscovers the restraints and swears under his breath. Or maybe just inside his head. Looks down as if to accuse his right arm of failing him. 

"Master." The bed dips when the Doctor perches beside him, leaning over. "Master." 

He's conscious of the slow, delicious smile that works his lips. Maybe if he lies nice and still, the Doctor will just keep saying it. 

Something cold gets stuck to his forehead, then he's dazzled by the light of a blue hologram above the bed. Floating, remote, he understands that he's looking at a real-time image of his own brain. The Doctor reaches inside it, pinches and focuses the image, searching, his left hand resting on the Master's shoulder as though he's forgotten where he put it. 

He loses time again. Blinks, and knows that it's later without quite being able to recall the part before. Has he slept? Lost consciousness? Neither feels right. The Doctor's still there, hip touching his hip, hand on his forehead. Not intruding, just monitoring his level of consciousness. He looks relieved to see signs of life. 

"What was that about, then?" He asks so gently that the Master momentarily believes in forgiveness. Then he gets a grip and merely assumes he must be dying, or worse, and that the Doctor's bleeding heart cannot bear it. "What do you remember?" 

"Blank." His throat is dry again. The head of the bed has been raised, this time, so he can sip the water the Doctor offers him without relying on somebody to hold him up. "I feel bloody awful." 

"I can see that. Has this happened before?" 

He begins to shake his head, 'no', but stops and frowns instead. Would he know? With bits of his mind dropping off a cliff like this, would he remember if it'd happened before? How to prove a negative? How to prove the existence of a thing from the space it leaves? He closes his eyes against the light that hurts too much. Notices, standing outside his own reality, that he's afraid the Doctor will take that compassionate hand away and strand him in the darkness. 

_'Bugger that.'_

"Let me sleep. Go away." 

The Doctor does as he's told. 

Just for once in his absurd life, the Doctor does as he's told. 

 

 

It's Harkness again, the next time he's aware of his surroundings. This time, the Master knows to the femtosecond how long it's been since he passed out. He basks in his sense of personal time, the solid foundation of a Time Lord's reason. Even if it is screaming bloody murder about being three feet away from the undying freak. 

His head moves on the pillow without pain—a fraction to the right so that he can look at Harkness. He opts for a tall metal stool over the chair, and one leg dangles nonchalantly while the other stays planted on the floor. 

"Good morning," says Harkness, folding his arms. 

The Master narrows his eyes. 

"You stink of him." What have they been doing, fucking on the next bed over? The Doctor's residual energy dances across Captain Jack's skin, across the surface of his mind. The odour of their combined ejaculate and saliva provides a mental illustration that would cause the Master to empty his stomach, if it had anything inside it. "Ugh." He turns his head the other way. 

"That really gets your goat, doesn't it?" Standing, Harkness leans nearer—his proximity still hurts; the Master flinches and tries to hide it—and presses the button that raises the bed's occupant into a sitting position. "I _know_ you were all over Lucy like a cheap suit, so why should it bother you if the Doctor's getting laid?" 

Memory almost blinds him—sudden, alien, an eruption of a different reality into the forefront of his mind. They brought Harkness to the suite, hosed down and dressed in a boiler suit. Handcuffed him to a chair, then he had Lucy sit on the man's lap. She'd never said 'no' to him before and she didn't then, and in the clarity of hindsight, the Master can see that it was because she didn't know how. 

 

_"He's not my type, Harry," she flirts, stroking his arm, but he points again at Harkness, points with the laser screwdriver, and she goes and sits there on his thighs, her legs tight together and her hands clasped in her lap._

 

Just a game. He didn't make her do anything, only sit there so Harkness could see, smell and feel all that he didn't possess. Only loop her arms around his neck so that, if he glanced down, all he could see was the tops of her breasts. Only wriggle a bit, to see if isolation and the stimulation of torture had had any effect on Captain Jack's notorious libido. 

 

_Lucy's breaths become shallower, faster, and the freak murmurs something to her. She meets his gaze for the first time and stares at him, lips parted in surprise._

 

"What did you say to her?" 

"What?" 

It's slipping again, it's all slipping, but this time he's falling into the past, and he doesn't want to go there. 

_'Focus!'_

"My wife. In your lap. What did you say to her?" 

Harkness stares at him. Stares like he's filth clinging to somebody's footwear, his face purpling with anger and the effort of self-restraint. 

"I told her I was sorry." He bends over the bed, quick, aggressive, and snarls in the Master's ear, "She loved you, you sick bastard, and you made her go play with another man. I told her I was _sorry_."

The six-foot cosmic anomaly stalks out the door. 

 

_Lucy comes so hard when he has her, later; comes yelping, 'Master!' while Harkness exsanguinates quietly in the next room. She comes again, quickly and deeply, multiple orgasms contorting her soft, human body when he drags her up on all fours and pounds into her, business-like, from behind._

 

He just assumed she must have really liked it. 

Lucy loved him? Really? 

That seems quite unlikely. 

 

 

He's alone for all of an hour before the Doctor shuffles in, hair wild and pyjamas absurd. 

"Jack was supposed to tell me when you woke up," he explains, and that mild, drowsy puzzlement completes the unwelcome picture in the Master's mind. He actually retches when he takes a breath to reply, when he catches the scent of Harkness on the Doctor's body, and he's unable to lift a hand all the way to his mouth to smother it. "Whoops!" Fast as a conjurer, cheerful as a sparrow, the Doctor pops a stainless-steel bowl beneath his chin. "Steady there." 

He hasn't eaten in days, so he's spared the humiliation of vomiting, but at the cost of a throat flooded with raw acid and bile, his diaphragm heaving ineffectually and painfully. Eyes streaming, coughing, he wishes the Doctor dead, and Harkness with him. 

"Release me," he demands, the second he can speak again. "You promised to leave me alone." 

"What, to leave you face-down on a beach with the tide coming in?" Mild, the Doctor checks his tubes, in and out. "You think I spent a year putting up with your mad whims just to come and build your funeral pyre on some nameless rock?" 

Well, when he puts it like that. Sounds like the old him, when he puts it like that. 

"Mad whims?" 

"Don't get me wrong," the Doctor says, hand on hearts as he busies himself with basic clinical readings. "The paradox machine, that was genius. Only you could've done that using nothing but a Type 40 and the twenty-first century. And the Toclafane, Utopia, was that you as well, or did you just take advantage of what you found there?" 

He's hardly in the mood for repartee and, besides, he doesn't know the answer. He should, and he doesn't, and that's higher priority than the Doctor's holier-than-thou. 

"I'm losing time," he says, to cut the flow of chatter short. "It's not just this." He raises his hands as far as he's able, waggling the straps back and forth. "I don't remember running down the beach, Doctor. What else?" 

"You tell me." Running out of little chores to be busy with, the Doctor stands beside the bed and studies him. There's concern there, genuine, but a hostility too; a warning not to push his luck. Of course, he immediately wants to push, just because. 

The Master takes a deep breath, banking the fire. Priorities. 

"Release me." Another breath, slower. Baby steps towards a rational discourse. "I'll contain myself if I notice any irrational urges." 

"Can you, though?" It's a genuine question. The Doctor unbuckles his left wrist without waiting for his answer. "Can you stop yourself? Seriously, do you even know when you ought to?" 

How long since he tried? When they drag your failing body out of time and pour you, screaming, into a fresh regenerative cycle, and put the keys to the Omega Arsenal into your hand and say, 'go forth, my son, and do your worst', nobody is asking you to _stop yourself_. That was, as far as the Master could ever discern the intent of the Time Lords, the whole point. 

He remembers about Lucy. 

"According to Captain Torchwood's recollection of events, no." 

Honest, uncertain with fragile edges, it's the right answer. 

The Doctor unfastens the rest of the straps, lays out a sterile kit and a prim, grey Gallifreyan hospital gown, and leaves him in privacy to deal with the catheter. 

 

 

When the Doctor returns, he's fully dressed and carrying a tray. For once, he hasn't smothered his hair with so much styling product that you can smell him from the next room, but he has showered and washed away the cloying fifty-first century pheromones that linger after Captain Jack's been groping him. 

The Master hasn't made it much further than the toilet and back, and only then by leaning on every piece of mismatched diagnostic equipment in his path. At least the gown is clean, a thin but sturdy layer of frictionless genosilk from throat to ankles. His limbs feel like jelly and his insides feel like he's regenerated, but his head is clear. 

His head is _clear_. Not caring to push his luck, he returns to bed, or rather selects a different bed, clean and fresh and with an adjustable mechanism that responds to thought rather than hydraulics. Where does the Doctor pick up this human clutter? And why? At what point in his admittedly varied adventures did the Doctor feel the need to wheel a whole bed out of an Earth hospital and into his TARDIS? What could possibly have happened to the six perfectly adequate bio-beds the medical bay came with? 

The Doctor puts the tray beside him. A slice of dry toast and a can of cola look surprisingly appealing, when compared with the usual standard of the cuisine around here. The Master takes a sip, a cautious bite, and lets himself rest back against the incline of the bed while his body gets used to the idea of swallowing food again. 

"You're different." 

He opens his eyes. The Doctor is at the foot of the bed, hands on the rail, his expression uncertain. 

"Different?" 

"You're... you." 

He lifts an eyebrow at the absurd comment, but he can see that the Doctor isn't prattling. He's attempting to define an observation that falls outside his range of experience. Alarming to think that he can tell just by looking, but then they did just spend a year in closer proximity than they have in centuries. That goes both ways, and in all that pointed silence, he's had a _very_ good, long look at the Doctor. 

Tapping his right temple, the Master grants him the point, uncontested. 

"The drums are quiet." 

"Gone?" 

"Never." 

"May I?" The Doctor indicates the diagnostic scanner attached to the bed. The Master shrugs, conveying an indifference that he doesn't feel, and hides his expression by taking another sip of the sweet drink. Then he lays his palms down on the sensor pads and lets the Doctor look. 

There's nothing to find. He knows this. 

To the Master's surprise, the Doctor doesn't focus on his brain. He's working his way deep into the cellular energy readings, bringing up a dual display with an earlier set of data. Curiosity overrules the Master's studied disinterest and he twists for a better look, keeping his hands firmly on the sensors. 

"What the hell is that?" 

"The day you can't remember, and now." 

"That's impossible." Prominent in the figures is the reading for accumulated artron energy. His has fallen dramatically since the Doctor first scanned his cells. "It doesn't work that way." 

"No, it doesn't." 

"Then your machines must be wrong." 

"Oh, you and your certainties." Rolling his eyes, the Doctor taps the screen. "Artron. Your cells. Going missing." 

"Well, it doesn't decay. And it should never have been that high to begin with. This body is practically brand new." He reaches up to adjust a tie, a collar that isn't there. Controls himself when his fingers, brushing against pliable silk, find the one that is. "And this has nothing to do with the sound of drums." 

"Sure about that, are you?" When the Doctor asks that, in that tone of voice, he's calling you an idiot. "It's not decaying, it's being consumed. Burned off. Burned off while you're raving like a lunatic. Peaking while you're unconscious and falling when you're..." He flaps his hands about. Graceful hands, ones the Master had no opportunity to study while the Doctor was wrinkled as a prune. He finally finds the word he's looking for, and it underwhelms. "You!" 

Ugh. A lecture coming from that youthful face makes his hands itch with murder. Instead of attempting one, the Master squeezes his hands into fists and waits out the fury. It's... so hard. So few situations are worth this amount of effort, or manage to coincide with a moment when he even cares about the difference between thought and action. 

This one does. He swallows the anger like he swallowed the bile, bitter and burning, and waits for his vision to clear. 

"It would appear that observation is in order," the Master says, choosing every word with care, and then he lies back, returning his hands to the sensor pads. 

The Doctor grins and goes to work on the screen, ordering up more tests then turning to consult him for a nod of approval. They work well together on a problem, each supplying one half of the perfect equation. They always have. 

When did he forget that? It seems an awfully long time since he last remembered it. 

For ten seconds together, with his body still, his head clear and a silence between them, this does feel like forgiveness. It does feel as if the Doctor could possibly understand. 

Ten seconds later, it doesn't.


	10. Zero-Sum

For an hour, the Doctor knows him again—the Master with his far-ranging brilliance and that desiccating wit. They study test results and discuss theory, managing to evade the topic of being mortal enemies for as long as it takes to arrive at a tentative hypothesis.

"Something, something external, is feeding you with excess artron energy, at the cellular level."

"Something unstable. Fluctuating."

"Something that consumes the same energy, or causes it to dissipate, or..."

There, they hit a wall.

On the grounds that the Doctor's own cells show the levels of artron you'd expect for his bodily age and exposure, they rule out the TARDIS, the absence of Gallifrey, and time travel. They rule out the presence of Jack Harkness, fixed point in space and time. Neither of them can supply enough data to answer for the role of the Time War, its battles and its obscene misuse of time technology.

By then, the Master is exhausted, though he isn't willing to admit it. The Doctor switches off all the screens and pushes them away from the bed. He doesn't want to end this quiet interlude, or to say goodbye to this glimpse of the man he once knew.

"What do you think it is?"

Propped against the slope of the bed, arms limp at his sides, the Master blinks away his drowsiness to fix him with a sharp, accusing stare.

"Now my opinion counts?"

Have they already had this conversation in the Master's imagination, the Doctor wonders? Have they thrashed it out together, over and over, in the privacy of that madness? Or is he lost in the legend of his own insanity—debated and discussed among the upper echelons of Time Lord society, who arrived at the conclusion that the Untempered Schism broke his mind when he was a child?

"I've never heard your opinion," the Doctor says, gently. "First I heard about the sound in your head was on Malcassairo." He's trying so hard not to provoke the other man, but it's a forlorn hope. Fear provokes him, always, and either the correction or the kindness curls the Master's lip into a sneer.

"It's calling me," he hisses, craning up from the bed for a moment, until his dwindling strength fails him and he sags back, tight lipped with frustration and angry with the humiliation. He's barely touched his meal of dry toast. Leaving aside the mystery of his fluctuating artron levels and the chaos between his ears, his test results are as clear as daylight. He's depleted on every level, and he needs to rest and rebuild himself if he doesn't want to end up as weak as a human. "It calls to me, day and night."

"All right." The Doctor assumes that he means the sound of drums, not the sizzle of time energy in his cells, although his instincts tell him that the two are connected. "A call. A message. A signal. That's a place to start."

Suspicious, the Master watches him fetch a blanket from storage and break the sterile wrap. He's waiting for a trick, an attack, an argument, a stroke of swift one-upmanship, but the Doctor just wants him to get well. Really, truly, he does. He can't bear this, even if it does mean they can have a sensible conversation. He tidies away the nibbled toast and empty cola can, then spreads the blanket across the Master's legs.

"You believe me?"

He shrugs. Doesn't miss the disbelieving note in the Master's question, nor how much he hates himself for being so weak as to care about the answer. Carefully, carefully, the Doctor navigates the conversation to avoid using the word 'help'. Mollified, calmer than the Doctor's seen him this side of regeneration, the Master looks as if he might get some natural sleep.

"You have far more data than I have. Let's start with that. I'm not ruling out anything."

Start at the beginning. Start again. Get it right this time.

He wishes.

 

 

_You're nineteen years old and on the cusp of developing your brain, the one you were born with, to its full organic potential. This is a time of study and meditation; of consultation and reflection; of stiff two-tone robes and heavy, metallic badges of merit. You chafe against the discipline and seek distraction and revelation, your imagination choking inside the ancient regime of the Citadel, the Academy. If you protest they call you a child. If you acquiesce, they treat you like one._

_You live for the hours when you're allowed to know the companionship of a kindred spirit—the only one you've ever found. Blue-eyed, dark-haired, he smiles like a child and reasons like an adept, and you love him. It's as simple as that. You love him for persistently being himself when he shouldn't be, and for shining as bright as the suns._

 

 

Jack's been crying.

The Doctor is experienced enough, alert enough to the sensitivities of humans not to stare, but his passing glimpse of Jack's congested face shocks him as he enters the console room. When he thinks of Jack Harkness, he pictures an irreverent smile, a warm glance, a twinkle in the eye, or a stoical concentration on the task in hand. Not weeping. To look the way he looks just now, the man must have wept his heart out, and that's not like him.

He makes checks at the console while he decides what to do, but his gaze keeps sliding back to Jack, who's standing perfectly still beside the outer doors, staring into space. Literally. The Doctor checks a log on the scanner, and finds that the doors have been standing open for some time. It's deep space, and they're motionless. He picked the spot for its isolation, not the scenery. The wildernesses can be beautiful, all the same.

"Nice view?" It seems a safe topic.

"Beautiful," Jack replies, automatically, his voice soft and his breath heavy.

When he left the infirmary, the Doctor was bursting to share the good news, the potential of the discovery he's made. Something stops him saying any of it, or mentioning the Master at all.

Jack's wrong—the Doctor does know exactly what the Master put him through aboard the _Valiant_. What he wasn't forced to witness in person, the Master recounted to him in perverse detail after the fact, or as part of his agenda for the coming day, always gloating and trying to twist the knife. He hasn't forgotten, though he wishes like anything that he could. He knows what Jack has endured. More than that, he knows the Master's reasons; that his choice of target was as calculated and cruel as his methods.

Shedding his blue jacket, leaving it over a rail, the Doctor stands beside Jack and joins him in staring at the stars. He can feel the frailty of the moment, folding away into possible futures that he can't see because it's _Jack_ at the centre of it, eclipsing everything but the now. Sometimes, he thinks, that pushed the Master over the edge. He intended cruelty, focused and precise. He achieved depravity, sweeping and horrifying, while Jack stubbornly endured.

"How's he doing?" Jack asks, toneless and vacant. He shouldn't have had to be the one to break the silence. The Doctor has an inkling of what not to say, at least, and chooses to share the least information he can about the Master.

"Resting."

"Good."

Lost for words that aren't bound to touch a nerve, he reaches across Jack's broad back and tucks himself against the man's side. It's not a forced gesture, not now. He enjoys human body-warmth through clothing; finds comfort in a touch himself. Jack's given him that, on top of everything; he's patiently demystified the human rules of intimacy, well aware that his friend—his lover—has trouble keeping up sometimes.

Jack drapes his arm across the Doctor's shoulders, smiling faintly without taking his eyes off the stars.

"You _really_ got better at this while I was gone."

The Doctor stifles an inappropriate grin of delight.

"One word you'd never associate with Time Lords," he says, half to himself. "Cuddly." 

Jack snorts, a bit damply.

"What about the other?" He indicates his meaning by stroking his thumb against the Doctor's neck—a tease that can make him quake, under the right conditions. Jack's been learning what those conditions are, so the Doctor supposes he has the right to ask the question.

"Oh, strictly for the purposes of procreation or dynastic symbolism. Genetic and temporal compatibility ensured by forms filled out in triplicate, then checked and approved by fifteen different governmental departments. No hanky-panky without a licence and a safety briefing." That's more of a loose illustration than a factual account, but it gives Jack the picture—Jack who can't meet anybody without weighing up the possibilities for mutual, carnal delight. Jack who comes from a time and place where the word 'inhibition' has fallen out of common usage. "Are you all right?"

"Not yet." Jack squeezes him closer. "This helps. Thanks." He's quiet for a while, then says, tensing, "I almost lost it with him, earlier today. I had to get out of there before I did something he'd regret. I wanted to beat him bloody."

"But you didn't."

Jack heaves a deep breath, unsteady with the threat of more tears.

"Like you said. About controlling your actions no matter what. I was _this_ close, Doctor. _This_ close to hitting a man while he was tied to a bed, helpless."

He's never that, the Master, but the Doctor takes the point.

"Why?" He can imagine why. He knows what the Master can do with a word, a turn of phrase.

Silence again. This one goes on so long that the Doctor thinks he isn't going to get a reply. But he feels Jack's body knotting with the struggle to put words around his answer. He loses the fight and turns his head, dry-eyed and wretched.

"Can we just—?" He leans closer, offering a kiss, not sure he's welcome.

The Doctor's nod is automatic, his answer a 'yes' too soft to count as a whisper. He puts his arms around Jack's neck and kisses him back. It crosses his mind, in a brief and abstract flash, as Jack pins him hard against the wall, that this is the only time Jack's ever asked him for anything at all.

 

 

_What you are to one another has no place in the order of things, so you make one. You and him, you make one together._

_When you're twenty-three years old, escaped into the field together on some research project, some proof of concept that takes you far from the Academy and out under open skies, you find a barn, and take off your clothing, and lie down in the dust to whisper promises and sleep together._

_You don't join your bodies, that would debase this, but you nestle close and share body-heat, and share your minds without reservation. You kiss one another until you can scarcely breathe for how it aches in your hearts. You share so many ideas—all your hopes and most of your fears, and even your dreams. You wake up wearing a telltale dried smear of reproductive fluid on your abdomen, yours and his intermingled. You tease each other about that. There's always an edge to his teasing that strikes you as unkind, as if he thinks it's a game he needs to win, but you've never been so happy._

_But you stop there. You both pause, and the agreement that you should wait is made in silence, without regret._

_This secret you share can wait on the Academy, on the demands of your Houses, and on a period of your life when your worth is judged not by your background or your allegiances, but by your achievements. There's time enough for all of it, as Time Lords, and he'll be by your side. He promised._

 

 

Jack's pain rolls over him in waves, his shields a mess, and the Doctor almost calls a halt mid-kiss. He doesn't fully understand what they are to one another in this regeneration, but it's been relief and respite, fun and forgetting—not this outpouring of anguish while they kiss and grab and grind. And the negativity isn't all Jack's. His own doubts and dread slip through the cracks, drawn out by the Captain's distress, by osmosis, and he can feel his fingers leaving bruises on the other man's back.

"Sorry," he murmurs, having trouble freeing his lips from Jack's long enough even for that. Tangled with the pain, Jack wants him very much, so the Doctor forces his hands to relax and strokes his palms over the incipient bruises, attempting a course-correction.

"Couldn't break me if you tried," Jack breathes in his ear, then drags hot, wet lips against his neck and makes him shudder. Jack laughs as he does it, staccato gasps that edge nearer to sobs than to mirth, and burning human tears add themselves to the whole pitiable mess they're making. "You wanna try, Doctor?"

His body yearning to hold on tight, his soul wanting to be anywhere but here, the Doctor grasps Jack by the shoulders and pushes him back a couple of steps. They're inches from the open TARDIS doors, a bubble of energy shielding them from hard vacuum.

"Not like this. I can't." He draws a line in the sand because he has to, and watches agony and then anger fill Jack's blue eyes. Then both are washed away by more tears, ones that start out as angry humiliation, but wind up as sobs against the Doctor's grey shirt, the assault of second-hand emotion levelling out into release, gratitude—a feeling of safety while the Doctor's arms are locked around him. That gives Jack the space to rebuild himself, the way the Master pulled himself together around a cold mental construct of Time Lord reason, only faster, and without another mind to help him do it, and with his trousers undone.

_'Oh, Jack.'_

He's crushed against the wall by the larger man's weight; he's battered into the bulkhead by the force of his sobs, and he wants to run away. So desperately. But he doesn't. God knows Jack's earned this from him—the small inconvenience of being the man holding the mop and bucket when the dam of his impossible resilience finally overflows.

He whispers softly into Jack's hair, soothing him with empty words, kind words, and staring out into space.

 

 

_His premature regeneration shatters all your illusions about forever. He's not even eighty years old yet—flush with his brilliance, riding the wave of his zealous ambition, and combative with it. Always on the cusp of declaring war on someone, or something. Your anger has softened with the years, with the assurance of success and the responsibility of your young family. His anger blazes on in self-imposed solitude, and he isolates himself at every turn. His vendettas are already legend._

_They never discover who wielded the blade that delivered him to death's door, but the crime sends shockwaves through Gallifrey's elite. Murder? Here? Our brightest and best?_

_Only you know how angry he always is these days; how ready for a fight and recklessly provocative._

_He almost dies. The robed healers drag you away from the shielded chamber where the elders surround him with murmurs, incense and their telepathic web of life-support. They help him to begin the regenerative process, then stabilise him through it. It's still touch and go, and they can't say why. The regeneration sickness lasts for days._

_When they finally let you go in, she looks back at you with blue-grey eyes that make you think instantly of starlight. Cold. And distant._

 

 

"Thanks," Jack says, much later, sheepish now that he's in control again. He's busy at the refectory counter, pulling together a thick sandwich made of cheese, ham and half a salad bar. The Doctor isn't sure what he's being thanked for—the cuddle, or for finally stocking the makings of a Jack-worthy sandwich.

He isn't hungry, but he makes a cup of instant soup to give himself a reason to stay and keep an eye on Jack for a while.

 

 

_Three years into her first regeneration she bears a daughter, without any regard for the dignity of her House. She has no genetically-approved spouse, no pair-bond, not even a household of her own, and the efforts of the authorities to identify her genetic donor come to naught._

_"She's mine," she says, and will say nothing more. Not even to you. She feeds her daughter at her own breast in public as the Outsiders do, to the scandal of Citadel society. While she gestates the child, she makes herself an expert in weaponry and battle tactics by reading everything ever written on the subject, then devising theoretical defence and attack plans that are as dreadful as they are exquisite._

_The infant is vibrant and beautiful, a hard brilliance with edges softened by curiosity, like an echo of who her mother used to be. You cradle the baby against your body, one lazy summer's day, and wish you had small children of your own again. Their minds are so perfect, so unsullied by time._

_That day, the slim blade that forced her dangerous regeneration is found in the heart of a lowly member of the Capitol Guard, a fallen favourite of Borusa. The assailant made sure he'd never regenerate._

_You tell the inquiry that she's been staying with your household while she recovers from the birth, so she couldn't possibly have killed anyone in the distant Citadel, with any sort of weapon._

_It's almost a century before you grasp that, without her ever quite lying to you about her movements, you once minded her newborn baby while she got away with murder._

 

 

The Doctor takes a tray to the infirmary, loaded with things that Jack assures him count as 'real food, like normal people eat'. The Master is still sleeping, curled awkwardly onto his side. He's slid down the slope of the bed and doubled over on himself, gown and blanket tangled around his hips. The Doctor considers adjusting the bed, but decides that cramped sleep is better than being woken for no good reason. He dims the lights and leaves the tray for later.

As much as he wanted to take himself away from Jack's misery earlier, the Doctor finds now that he can't leave it alone; he's uneasy with Jack out of his sight, unable to predict his actions. He's grown used to Jack being a certainty in an uncertain universe—the very thing he ran away from. That might've been in another lifetime, but it wasn't very long ago.

Just look how much things change if you give them time.

"Does he want to be alone?" He asks his ship, looking around at her welcoming walls. "I can't tell, can you?" The TARDIS doesn't give him any hints, but he feels her sing with delight at being spoken to by her pilot. There's another friendship he's been neglecting. The Doctor pets the wall and thinks, glumly, that they'll make that his epitaph when he finally runs out of lives. _'Here lies the Doctor, Time Lord of Gallifrey. With friends like him, we didn't need enemies.'_

Jack's in his room, but he's left the door open and he smiles when he sees the Doctor. The TARDIS shapes the personal quarters around the occupant, if they allow it and if they spend enough time there. When Jack travelled with him before, his room was gaudy and cluttered, somewhere between a barracks and a low-budget hotel at a spaceport. This space is so neat that you could think nobody lived or slept here, except for the bed, which Jack lounges on frequently as well as sleeping in occasionally. He's sitting in the middle of it now, cross-legged in loose-fitting black sleepwear, with a stillness about him that suggests he's been working on his telepathic shield. Meditating.

"I've finished being overdramatic," Jack says, mistaking his hesitation in the doorway. "It's safe to come in."

"Jack." The comment wasn't a reproach, but the Doctor's in the mood to take it like one. He goes in. Sits, cross-legged like Jack and with his back to the footboard. "Talk to me," he offers, giving Jack's own words back to him because he doesn't have any decent ones of his own.

"You don't do this." Jack relaxes his posture a little, leaning with his hands planted behind him on a purple throw. His expression is knowing and forgiving. "You don't do complicated."

The Doctor bristles, because Jack is right, and that makes him feel that he's in the wrong.

"My ship, my rules," he says, harsher than he means to sound. As if being definite justifies everything. He sounds like the Master when he does that. "I don't _understand_ 'complicated'," he protests. "It doesn't mean I don't care. You think I skate across the surface of your lives without ever caring?" He's startled by his own outburst. Jack isn't. "That's what he thinks. The Master. That I keep you lot around like... like _ornaments_."

"I think you have more important things to do than stand by with band-aids and a handkerchief."

He's thought that too. So many times. He's thrown people out of his TARDIS and left them behind for hesitating, for complaining, let alone for crying on his shoulder. He's slapped them between the shoulders and said, 'brave heart', and expected them to follow his example, even if they were only human.

Most of them did.

"Do you think I can't... unbend... even for the person I'm sleeping with?" The Doctor relaxes a bit, having found words that'll do. He settles his weight more comfortably against the wooden footboard. Unsurprisingly, Jack Harkness goes for a sturdy bed, comfortable from any angle. "I don't make a habit of this." He gestures to the sheets, the pillows, because he can't say it. Not easily. "Because it changes things."

"So, I'm an exception." Amused, Jack doesn't try to hide it, but the amusement isn't at anybody's expense. Just warm, just Jack, to whom these emotions come as easily as breathing.

"You were always that, Captain." He runs out of words and gestures with restless hands instead, frustrated. "I can listen, I promise." He shifts on his buttocks, self-conscious about the half-truth. "You just need to tell me when I ought to be doing it. Sometimes. If I'm... busy."

"For the record?" Jack crawls over and kneels in front of him, taking him by the hands. "Most humans don't think that far ahead, or that clearly, when they're emotional. Try a hug and hope you don't get covered in snot, like earlier."

The Doctor nods, sagely, feeling his Time Lord dignity. Jack kisses him, thumbs stroking his hands, and lets his thoughts leak enough that the Doctor can be sure this is an apology. Curious, half distracted by the taste of toothpaste on Jack's lips, he chases the emotion with his mind, letting his own thoughts brush against Jack's. Hands tighten around his, the kiss broken with a short, awe-struck little gasp.

Jack opens his eyes.

"Did you just—?" He starts to laugh, then falters, then notices that he's crushing the Doctor's bones and loosens his grip. "Wow. Is that how you—" Again he stops, not trusting this to spoken language.

"That's how I feel," he confirms.

Jack nods, processing the distant echo of an alien mind.

"That's... complicated," he says, appreciative—nodding again, then laughing, relieved.

The Doctor grins and pulls him in for another kiss.

 

 

_When you leave Gallifrey, you already know your friend is a lost cause. He's burning through his regenerations on a quest that you can never share in, and you already mourn him. He calls you 'old man' now, and mocks your small ambition to see the stars, and he vanishes for decades at a time, after they declare him a renegade and order him arrested on sight. He still comes back to see his daughter, to see you decay towards your own, first regeneration, but then he's gone again, gone in the TARDIS that they never manage to take away from him no matter how hard they try, and you hear terrible stories of the things he does out there in the universe._

_That's what gives you the idea of stealing a TARDIS, though it's years more before you put the idea into action. While there's still anything of home that you love, value and respect; while there's still a spark of that childlike hope inside you, you take your granddaughter and run for the stars._

 

 

It wasn't all good, that glimpse of honesty he shared with Jack, but his sense of Jack's gratitude lingers until the other man finally falls asleep. In the meantime, he's expressed himself the way he does best, stretching out above the Doctor on the bedclothes and kissing him, with immaculate thoroughness, from his hairline to his thighs. He's never met anybody who kisses the way Jack does, nor anybody else who'd even contemplate kissing his arse. And he doesn't stop there, god knows; the man can do things with his tongue that the Doctor would, until quite recently, have doubted were physically possible between two basic humanoids.

Jack teases him until he's flushed and yelping with every nudge of that hot tongue between his buttocks, then falls back onto his heels and gazes down at him, and drops his shields so the Doctor can _see_. 

"Don't," the Doctor groans, but he doesn't shut the image out. He could, so easily, but Jack feels so alive. Jack can see beauty in anything and wants to make love to the universe all in one go. He has enough control to pare away the emotional onslaught and project the image alone for a few moments; a Time Lord undone, and too old now to be ashamed about much of anything. Startled, yes. Confused, his insides all squirmy with complication and delight. Aroused beyond anything he would've believed possible, in any body before this one. But not ashamed. What would be the point?

When they stopped for food on a no-questions-asked Earth colony, Jack brought back a personal lubricant that he, connoisseur, says is the best ever made. The Doctor's had no cause to argue with that, with the touch of luxury while they've been snatching opportunities around their duties in the infirmary, but tonight's the first time he's on the receiving end of the wonder-product, as applied to anal penetration, and his eyes are well and truly _opened_. Jack laughs after he's eased himself inside—a soft, dirty, told-you-so chuckle that reminds the Doctor of who's the expert here, and that nine-hundred years of time and space can't teach you everything worth knowing, or how to be properly alive. Only other people can teach you that. He arranges his thoughts so as to share a fragment of his amusement, his humility and his pleasure, and feels Jack tremble in response, momentarily losing control of his movements and thrusting deep. The forbidden contact sings back and forth between their minds, sharpening arousal, but then Jack settles close over his back and reaches up for his hands, and whispers in his left ear,

"Carefully, yeah? I don't wanna hurt you." The rest of his thought drifts away, unspoken and only half acknowledged in his own mind, yet clearly visible to the Doctor in colours of poignancy and forgiveness. _'I love you too much for that.'_

Feeling like an intruder, well aware that it's not _his_ mind in danger of imploding if they take too many risks, he concentrates until they have some distance; concentrates on what Jack's doing to him, on how his body feels pressed so close; concentrates on the purely physical, just like he always does when he needs to make the effort to lose control. Sharing that sensation with Jack creates a feedback loop, inevitable and compelling, and what Jack intended to be an evening of slow indulgence becomes more like a race for the finish line in which there can be no losers.

They both have the sense to lock down their minds before they come, but they leave it long enough that, when they do, it's within moments of one another, noisy, and quite _unbelievably_ fantastic.

It's only after Jack falls asleep and his body cools down that the Doctor realises; he never once felt like running away. 


	11. Two-Body Problem

Jack wakes up with a headache, feeling like he's spent the night cuddled up to a block of ice. The Doctor isn't as cold as that—he just feels it after a while. Usually, by the time Jack starts feeling uncomfortably chilly, the Doctor is roasting, and then it's every man for himself. When they fall asleep together, they don't try to do it naked, and they politely divide the bed in half rather than wake up grumpy.

They seem to have made it work all night, this time. Most of the duvet is hanging over Jack's side of the bed, leaving his left arm exposed and the Doctor uncovered behind him. He drags some of it back over himself. Even that much movement makes him groan with the throbbing pressure inside his skull. The Doctor makes a noise of drowsy dissatisfaction and flops away from him, away from the disturbance and the warmth.

Has he really been there the whole night? And naked? Jack's not much for the milestones, but the Doctor spending even five minutes longer than he needs to without his clothes on—that's an _event_.

The Doctor fidgets his way awake—not his usual trick of switching from nap-mode to full-on-Doctor without a pause for breath. His hand lands on Jack's abdomen, then tests out the shape of him until he achieves recognition, as though he's as surprised as Jack was. He yawns. Stretches like a cat, his whole body rigid and quivering until he subsides with a comfortable sigh.

He's slept more in the past couple of weeks than Jack saw him do in all those months of travelling with the Doctor's previous regeneration. Back then, if he woke up from a nightmare, he wouldn't go near a bed again until fatigue left him no choice, and he never caught more than three hours in one go.

That's how Jack knows what the _Valiant_ has taken out of the Doctor. Being aged like that, every cell torn apart and reconfigured; the stillness, the vigilance, the waiting. For some people, waiting is torture, and the Doctor's one of those. Once he surrendered and started sleeping, he didn't stop, even for the nightmares.

Sleeping together helps with that—makes the difference between throwing themselves out of bed in total avoidance and being soothed back to sleep by a kind word or a touch. They just haven't been doing it plastered together and stark naked.

Groping to his left, Jack locates bare skin, identifies it as part of a skinny arm, then follows it with his palm until he gets a hold of the Doctor's hand.

"I thought you'd never wake up." The Doctor squeezes his hand in return.

"You are so full of it," Jack mutters, certain that he woke up first. The only way they stayed plastered together like that for longer than twenty minutes was unconscious. "What time is it?"

"Crack of dawn, ship's time. She likes making dawn, Earth dawn. Tried out some birdsong once, that was nice. Dawn chorus. Except for the rooster. Nobody enjoyed the rooster except me and her."

Jack winces to himself, imagining those happy breakfast times for those unnamed, exhausted companions, with an unspecified version of the Doctor glowing at them like a bright morning sunbeam. The Doctor is usually like that—sound asleep one second, then he hits the ground running without any fuss in between. He only gropes his way towards consciousness and coffee when he's hurt or sick.

Sleep is sticking to Jack like concrete, this morning, and he'd roll over and give in if it wasn't for the unpleasant pounding behind his eyeballs.

The Doctor yawns again, shifting like he plans to drape himself over Jack and go back to sleep, but before he gets there he sits up instead, snatching the lazy mood away.

"How's your head?"

"Sore." He rubs his forehead, trying to work loose the band of tension that's crushing his brain. "Is it because we—?"

"Yes." The Doctor leans over, bringing naked bits of him back into contact with Jack's skin. "Side effect." Jack grunts, letting the Doctor move his hand out of the way and replace it with his own. The coolness feels nice, there.

"Another etiquette tip for you," Jack sighs, his heart not in it. "You should warn a person if the sex is going to have _side-effects._ "

"Doesn't it always? Be quiet a minute. Let me in."

Oh, the potential of that sentence. But the Doctor is serious, and almost certainly talking about his mind, so Jack behaves himself and cautiously lets go of his mental shields. The Doctor's mind flows into Jack like cool water, numbing the pain. It's still there, but it's outside him, or... inside him, out of harm's way? He blinks, trying to make sense of pain that doesn't hurt.

"Think of it like... like pulling a muscle in your mind," the Doctor suggests. "It's not your head that hurts, but your brain can't work that out. It'll be millions of years before human brains adapt even to latent telepathic ability."

It's nothing like last night, with those flashes of intimacy, those thrilling doses of one another's pleasure. The Doctor feels removed from what he's doing; his mind is just a tool right now, poking about inside Jack's mind with all that passion locked away. Pure concentration, utterly impersonal. Jack wants badly to kiss him, close the distance. He buries his fingers in the Doctor's hair and tries to draw him down. The Doctor doesn't budge.

"Concentrate for five minutes, will you? We can't do that again until your brain gets the hang of this. I'm trying to help you build neural pathways, here."

Again? That one word focuses Jack's willpower on the task in hand. He'd figured never-again, the Doctor scared off by the taste of their compatibility, or by finding out that Jack can't handle it. He wants to do that again?

"I want to do that again," Jack tells him, in case there's any doubt. He lets his arms rest on the bed, his hands on best behaviour. "It's not the first time I've woken up sore and it won't be the last."

The Doctor rolls his eyes. Even without looking, Jack just knows he does.

It's hard to grasp what the Doctor is doing. And that's not exactly what's going on; he's not _doing_ anything. More like, the Doctor is showing him something he can't quite see. There's a basic incompatibility between the hardware and the software, though, and every time he thinks he has it, something glitches.

Jack rides out an unwelcome flashback to his one and only practical training session in telepathic defence. They brought in a telepath, one on one, to show you three things that no amount of classroom instruction could illustrate; how bad they could hurt you, how far they could manipulate you, and how you could stop them doing either. They'd plant an image in your mind of the barrier, the technique that could keep them out, and that was it. 'X' marks the spot. Dig here. You were on your own, trying to find a loose thread you could pull on to turn your own mind inside out. It's like trying to scratch an itch that's out of reach—an itch you don't even know about but have been told is there for the scratching. Easy once you know how. Makes your eyes water trying to figure it out in the first place.

His eyes are watering now—another misplaced physiological response to a type of effort his body has no idea of how to process.

Queasy, Jack sits up, trying to shut the Doctor out of his head. He can't. The Doctor's free hand rests on his shoulder, squeezing for reassurance. Jack can't make out his expression in the fake-dawn gloom, and that scares him more than what the Doctor's doing inside his head.

"Stop," he says, with what feels like way too much effort, and grabs the Doctor's arm to reinforce the point.

The Doctor lets up and the maddening sensation in his head subsides, leaving Jack breathing hard and wiping at his streaming eyes.

"I couldn't shut you out."

"I know. Your shields are a mess." Jack gets his kiss, then—just a sweet brush of the Doctor's lips against his, meant to soothe and reassure. "You let me in, Jack," he says, low-voiced and quiet. "I'll show you how to keep me out, I promise, but I can't do that while your head hurts. Let me?"

Jack doesn't answer him right away. He takes a moment to calm himself down, to remind himself that this is _the Doctor_ he's dealing with, and that they made love last night in ways he'd only theorised were possible. And it was... It was _incredible_. But now he knows why every other telepath he's ever propositioned has turned him down flat. You don't get to take it back. You don't get to rub ointment on the affected part, or take a course of antibiotics to clear up the problem. They can't unsee what they saw.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says, sitting back on his heels and withdrawing his hands into his lap, dragging a fold of the duvet in with them for some modesty. "I shouldn't have let it go this far."

Jack almost hits out at him. Hurt, angry—thrown right back into that aching sense of abandonment, of not-knowing, that he lived with for over a hundred years. The Doctor waits and watches in the rising light, leaving him the space to figure himself out before he says,

"I'd _really_ like to do it again, Jack. Doesn't make it the best idea I ever had. Doesn't mean there aren't consequences." He nudges Jack's temple with one knuckle. Fond, teasing. The pain's still there, but his brain is less sure about what to do with it, now. It's stopped throbbing and just feels all sickly-tight and uncomfortable.

Intellectually, Jack knows that what they did last night was the psychic equivalent of trying to fuck at arm's length while wearing a full hazmat suit; that they hardly even touched, by the Doctor's standards. But it was great, it was joyful. It was theirs the way nothing else could be. He doesn't want that lost in morning-after regrets.

"Can we do this later? I need a shower." And possibly to throw up. His brain can't decide what to do about that, just yet. "I need some time."

The Doctor nods, drinking in his every word as if he can wring out more information from them than the average listener. He probably can.

"Stay away from the Master," he warns, jumping neatly off the bed and grabbing his clothes off the floor. The guy will get fully dressed just to walk back to his own room and dress for the day. Seriously. You know he'd still do it even if he was completely alone in his TARDIS. "You're fine apart from the headache, I promise. Just stay well away from him until we sort out your shields, all right? He could—I don't even want to think what he could do to you in this state, and you wouldn't be doing him any favours either."

"Right," Jack says, resenting his own obedience, with the idea that he's doing the Master any favours. Only a vague sense of his age and dignity keeps him from bolting into the bathroom and locking the door. He walks instead, and stays still with his back to the door until he hears the Doctor leave.

Somewhere deep down, under the throbbing nausea and the hurt feelings and the incredible memory of feeling the Doctor's pleasure last night, Jack's terrified. He's as scared as he's ever been in his life, and he can't even figure out why.

 

 

Shower. Clean clothes. Coffee. Those three things'll make anything better, in Jack's experience, and the coffee aboard the TARDIS has improved one hundred percent since their little stop-off at a trading colony. A neat, cube-shaped machine next to the battered jug kettle now dispenses espresso on demand, black, creamy and perfect.

Jack surveys the evidence that the Doctor got here before him. Toast crumbs, a smear of butter on the counter, and a leftover half of grapefruit sitting in a bowl. That's what you feed a sick Time Lord? He shakes his head. At first, he thought the Doctor was pretending, a kind of conscious denial, but it turns out he really _doesn't_ get the psychology of keeping a prisoner. He's _been_ one often enough, can tell you a few hundred stories about cell doors he's defeated, but he probably doesn't ever stick around long enough to get fed or to find out about falling morale.

He doesn't interfere, and not only because the Doctor warned him to stay away from the Master. If he's anything like the Doctor, which he must be, he'll be walking-wounded within a day or two, and then he can fix his own breakfast. 

Jack doesn't feel much like eating, himself. He sits and makes the coffee last, trying to figure out what the Doctor showed him earlier. He's held his shields in place for so long now that it's become habit. The Doctor's been all telepathic-touchy ever since the Master assaulted him, and UNIT's files warned in explicit detail that the Master is capable of suggestion, hypnosis, and worse.

Shield is the wrong word—just the word they use in training to give you the idea. Jack's always pictured a bunker, a manhole cover that he pulls down tight to seal his thoughts inside with him, safe from a mind probe or a nosy telepath. Easier to defend than to attack, in theory; If you concentrate, and if you don't go having mind-blowing mind-sex with the nearest hot alien telepath. Jack can't even remember the last time he came that hard, and he saw—felt—the Doctor let go the way he never did before.

Worth it? Jack rubs his temples with fingertips warmed by his coffee mug. The Doctor's right. It isn't pain. If he can hold that thought, it goes away and leaves an amorphous, non-physical discomfort in its place. That's great until he gets it wrong, confuses his central nervous system about what's going on, and winds up doubled over the waste-disposal, regretting the bitter coffee in particular and his insane life in general.

He's wiping the sweat from his face with a paper towel when he feels the Doctor there watching him. At least, he hopes it's the Doctor, because if the Master saw that charming little interlude, Jack's simply going to have to find a gun and shoot him. He turns, and it's the Doctor, arms folded and back to the bulkhead nearest the door, his expression that one of sympathy that people wear when they're not afflicted themselves.

"If you got me pregnant," Jack says, pointing a hard finger at him, "I'm gonna sue you across two galaxies for false representation."

To his relief, the Doctor grins hugely, and so does he.

"Headache?"

"More like, I dunno. Motion sickness? Space sickness?" Jack kicks the nearest chair out from the table and sits, feeling weak and weird.

"Very similar, or so I'd imagine." The Doctor sounds more interested than concerned. "You left half your coffee, look."

"And I regret the half I didn't," Jack snaps, holding up a hand to stop the Doctor putting the mug down in front of him. "Get on and fix this, will you?" The silence gets a bit pointed, then it goes on too long. The Doctor wasn't the one who called a time-out, earlier. "Sorry. I'm a little freaked out." The honesty feels good. It always did, with the Doctor. Jack finds it more of a struggle out there in the real world, with anyone but him. "How's he doing this morning?"

"He looks much better than you do."

Insult on top of injury. Lovely. Jack pats the green Formica table top.

"Come on. Show me what I need to do. I don't need you picking up every thought in my head." He smiles to himself as the Doctor pulls out a chair and sits to his left. "You'd never stop blushing."

"I'm not that sensitive." The Doctor turns his chair until he's facing Jack, beckoning for him to do likewise. "Under normal circumstances." He blushes anyway, but it doesn't read as embarrassment. Not exactly. More as though he's flustered by the memory of being so open, so far gone, that Jack could even project a thought at him. Jack settles down a bit, more confident of where he stands.

"Did I cross a line? Last night?"

For a moment, a glance, the Doctor meets his eyes. Then not.

"No. But I did."

"If you enjoyed it as much as I did," Jack says, nudging the Doctor's knee with his own, "Don't be sorry."

"How about we find out what the consequences are before you decide if we're sorry?" He's snappish and short, the way he was right after they escaped the _Valiant_. Stress isn't a good look on him. Jack doesn't like being the cause instead of the cure. "Ready?" The Doctor holds up both hands in front of his face, finally looking him in the eye. Jack nods, leaning forward so he can reach better.

He gets a crash course in advanced psychic defence techniques. The Doctor's a way better teacher than the solemn blue guy with gills who showed him the basics all those years ago at the Time Agency. He'd figured the water imagery came with the gills, but the Doctor chooses the same frame of reference to guide him. Or maybe that's just how it is? The Doctor seems to wrap around his thoughts, sealing them inside a bubble together, shutting out everything else. It feels like the way being underwater sounds, so maybe that's why Jack sees a dreamy blue ocean all around him, feels his body hanging limp in the water, buffeted by the current. The Doctor's fingers press hard into the pressure points on his cheeks and temples—his anchor. Thoughts, emotions, flash past like silver-dollar shoals. Most of them are his own. The Doctor is a force of concentration, everything else shut down. But he's easily distracted, even now.

"Fish?"

They open their eyes and stare at each other. Jack shrugs.

"Fish. Since you're skinny-dipping in my mind." The Doctor blushes. Full on crimson ears and pink cheek highlights. Jack loves him. They both feel the backwash when _that_ monster of the deep moves a fin. The Doctor's lips part. Indrawn breath, then he fights with himself. Embrace this, or chase it away? "You must've known," Jack says, so gently.

Blinking away his shock, the Doctor shuts his eyes and concentrates again. He grips Jack's face harder, painful at his cheekbones. Holding Jack still in the tropical waters, while somewhere else, the Doctor's not waving but drowning.

"I don't think I've ever known. What it feels like for a human. Shush, Jack. We need to do this." His voice is rough, weak. "Touch my skin."

"Your face?" Jack hesitates. Doesn't know what he's doing, but knows enough to see how bad a mistake would be.

"Doesn't matter."

Jack brings his own hands over the Doctor's, sandwiching cool fingers between his own warm flesh. Feels the Doctor there with him inside the bubble, all his little fishes in tow. He shuts his eyes, reaching out as best he can. The Doctor blocks him, pushes him back to a distance, but Jack sees...

His conscious mind scrambles to process it all, to fit it all into the ocean metaphor. Pain pulses behind his forehead, the mental construct of himself struggling underwater until his body becomes convinced that he's drowning and he starts gasping for air.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The Doctor holds them both still—still in their seats and still in their minds. "I should never have done this," the Doctor says. Out loud? Jack can't tell. The Doctor's anger cuts through the mind-water like a shark, body flexing, tail thrashing, darting away into the deeps. "I finally find someone I can snog without tasting their _death_ , and I crack his mind wide open. Oh, well done, Doctor. Well done."

"Yes, Doctor. Well done."

Jack and the Doctor wrench themselves apart, flying to their feet to turn and face the Master. He's standing in the open doorway, arms folded. The straight neck-to-ankles grey gown and untrimmed beard make him look eccentric, almost harmless, but the Doctor edges sideways until he's directly between the Master and Jack.

"You shouldn't be up," he says, taut with suppressed... everything.

The Master smiles, the pleasant smile that won Harold Saxon the election.

"Did you think you could keep this from me?" He gestures to the tableau, the two of them snatching apart like guilty children caught playing doctor. "Even your ship can tell you've been a complete idiot."

The Doctor swallows, settling his feet more squarely, ready to move if he has to. Jack pictures the other day, out in the sand dunes, the Doctor knocking the cocky bastard on his ass. He rests his finger over the trigger for the control collar and stares the Master down, wondering who he's gonna have to protect.

"He won't tell you this, Torchwood, so I will." The Master takes two easy steps into the room, the door sliding shut behind him. "A Time Lord consciousness is capable of cracking your tiny mind like an egg. One glimpse of his true face and your mind will _burn_. He's cracked your shell for the sake of a nice shag."

"That's none of your business." Jack isn't afraid. Not for himself, anyway. He doesn't want the Doctor making this into a war on his behalf. God knows those two don't need any more reason to fight.

"It wouldn't be, if he wasn't broadcasting his guilt, and your vulnerability with it. He's scared that I'm going to rip you open and stamp on all the squashy bits before he can fix you."

"Just... go," the Doctor explodes, hands flying in frustration. "This doesn't involve you!"

"But you're scared that it will. That I'll take him away." The Master leans towards the Doctor, saying that. Almost leering. "That's it, isn't it? You fancy him because he's not going to _die_ on you? You fancy him for a little taste of home?" He pulls a face, the perfect parody of a reaction to tooth-rotting cuteness. "Bless."

"A little privacy here," Jack demands, nodding towards the door. "If you can sense everything you didn't need to come look."

"I can't _not_ sense it," the Master snarls, so suddenly furious that even the Doctor takes half a step backwards. He barely glances at Jack, saving all his hard-eyed accusation for the Doctor. "So, if you wouldn't mind cleaning up your pet's _mess_ so I can think straight, I'd like to get back to work."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says, holding out placating hands. Jack stares over his shoulder, his own temper flaring. _'What the hell?'_

For a man wearing a long nightie, commando, the Master makes one hell of a classy exit. Time _Lord_. Jack fights a sudden urge to trigger the collar out of pure spite. The Doctor's shoulders sag. Relief? Dismay? Fatigue? Jack grabs his left shoulder and drags him around, hard.

"Why are you even apologising to him?!"

"Jack... don't." Pained, annoyed, the Doctor's gaze slides away from his. "He can't shut it out, for some reason. Not just—" The Doctor points to his own head, then Jack's, then drops his hand to his side. "You. Us."

"And we're...what, sorry for the inconvenience?" Unbelieving, Jack stares. Studies the Doctor's face, looking for any trace of comprehension. "Screw that. If he's jealous, that's his problem."

"Don't start," the Doctor cries. He grabs his own head, fingers sinking into his hair as he turns away. Puts a few steps of distance between them, struggling with his aggravation.

"Start what?"

"Projecting... human... onto me! Or him! He's not jealous of you, Jack. He's _disgusted_. By you. With me! And he can't block you out, or me if I'm not in complete control. He should be able to, easily, better than I ever could, but he can't, and we are _so_ close to a breakthrough. Oh, this—!" He gives up, growling in his throat and tugging at his hair.

Jack folds his arms. He hates the pettiness of the gesture, but he wants the safety of it. Wants to hug himself tight and get a long, long way away from these crazy aliens who keep redefining his reality.

"We're walking on eggshells around the megalomaniac prisoner," he says, seeking clarification. Unable to help a dollop of bitter sarcasm. "The man who tortured us both for kicks."

"If you like."

"I don't!" Jack wrenches at a chair, sending it crashing away to his left, into the orange-fronted cupboards. One retro door bounces open and a stack of Mars Bars tumble out onto the floor. The Doctor stares. "I hate this!"

For a second, he thinks the Doctor is just gonna walk out. No, more than that. For a second, the Doctor _is_ just going to walk out—a line crossed into that boundless space he defines as 'too human'. Jack _knows_ it. But the Doctor turns away again instead, scrubbing at his scalp and controlling himself with a groan of frustration and dismay.

"Jack..."

"I'll guard him, I'll clean up after him, I'll even protect him if it comes down to it. I'll do that for _you_ , but I'm _not_ gonna go out of my way to spare his damn feelings!"

"That—" The Doctor points at the door, at the departed spectre of the Master, then stops, groping for the words. "That was a warning," he says, turning back to face Jack. He's left his hair all wild, and he's pale with strain, with anger. With the effort of stooping to this level to explain himself. This time, Jack almost walks out. "One he didn't need to bother with. I left you vulnerable, and he could crush you any time he wants to. He couldn't kill you, Jack. All those times he tried. Can you imagine how badly he wants to hurt you, break you, now I've given him a way in? He didn't. He isn't!"

Against his will, swayed by the agony and the alarm in the Doctor's eyes, Jack begins to take his point. He doesn't want a fight, not with the Doctor.

"It's that bad?"

"Not while he's resisting temptation."

Jack pictures a hen's egg splashing easily under a shiny black shoe.

"And you knew this would happen. Like he says."

"Not exactly."

"What does that mean?!"

"When I looked inside your mind, before. The other me, looking for your missing time. This couldn't have happened, then. Your mind has changed. Your level of ability. I didn't... I should have, and I didn't, think to check."

Jack knows his expression is a jaded one; his eyes icy-cold. He doesn't try to hide how he's feeling. Past the outrage and the outburst, he feels like he's been kicked in the gut.

"I didn't get more psychic just to spite him. Any more than I became immortal just to make you squirm. You can both get the fuck over it."

"Oh, fine then. I'll just go and find something to keep myself busy while he eviscerates your mind, shall I?" Hiking a thumb over his shoulder at the door, the Doctor walks towards him. "This isn't about sparing his feelings, and I don't have time to spare yours. I don't want to lose you." The picture of grim determination, he brings his hands up towards Jack's face.

How can he say the right thing and still make it sound so wrong? Jack catches hold of his wrists before he gets halfway. Metal cufflinks dig into his palms.

"If it means I lose what we did last night, don't even think about it." Mistrust threads and weaves itself around the words. Jack wonders what kind of fish that would be, in that bubble mindscape. Slippery, like an eel, or vicious like a piranha? "That's mine."

He lets go of the Doctor. Sees the cufflinks that've left red indentations in his skin. Gambler's dice, silver and blue enamel, landing on two sets of sixes.

Jack almost laughs. Tears up instead and turns his head to one side. Shuts his eyes tight when the Doctor reaches up for his face, then gasps, halting and loud, when the Doctor strokes his hair instead of grabbing for his mind.

"I can protect you, if you want," he says, light-voiced and tender, the way he is sometimes while they make love. The Doctor's game for anything, but unless Jack's steering they'll wind up pressed together, belly to belly, grinding slowly and drawing it out just as long as they can while their hands grab everywhere, urging and sweet. "I can shield you from him myself, if you can trust me enough. I don't think you can. I don't think you should. Or we can fix this together, and be more careful next time."

"How much do I need to trust you for that?" The kindness washes away all of his anger, all those years of stored-up resentment. He wants to open his eyes, but he doesn't want to see the Doctor, sad and pleading, full of a love that Jack can never understand and probably can't even live with. Not forever.

"Not one little bit," the Doctor promises, sounding relieved. He cups Jack's face between his hands. "Ready?"

Jack nods. Ready as he'll ever be.

 

 

It takes... what? An hour? Two? Jack keeps hold of the water construct, and lets the Doctor teach him how to swim. Where he's always pictured that bunker as his shield, the manhole cover clanging shut above his head, the Doctor visualises a clamshell snapping shut, and they both laugh about that. Both are too crude for what Jack needs now; for even contemplating making love to a Time Lord, mind to mind. They cut adrift guilt and shame (the Doctor's), and fright and arousal (Jack's), and their fight, and the Master, and they shape the resulting stillness into a bubble with Jack weightless at its centre. A sphere, smooth and, once Jack masters it, flawless. No way in.

When they finish, they're both kneeling on the linoleum, Jack's face bruised from the Doctor's grip, while his own hands are so tight around the Doctor's upper arms that he's surprised he didn't hear bones snap.

Jack forces his fingers loose and plants his hands on his thighs for support.

"You'll feel a bit—"

"Out of it?"

"Yeah. But you have to focus until it becomes second nature. Instinct." The Doctor slumps onto his hip, right hand braced against the floor. He rubs his nose with the other one. "Ugh, Jack, you always have to up the stakes, don't you?"

It's more a friendly observation than a complaint.

"This'll keep him out?"

"It's more for keeping you in. As you build it up, build layers of protection, then it'll keep anything out."

Jack smiles, tiredly.

"Stop me chumming the waters?"

"Exactly." The Doctor nods hugely, eyes wide, indicating that he's not even kidding. "Not around him. Not now."

"And us?" Part of Jack still has difficulty holding on to the idea that there's an 'us' to talk about. But there is, and what they had last night, he wants again. Thinks the Doctor does too—that if he's skittish and scared, it's not because he didn't love every second of what they did together.

"None of his business." A lopsided smile and a tired sigh. The Doctor gropes blindly to his left and grabs a handful of the spilled chocolate bars, tossing a couple into Jack's reflexive catch and tearing into a wrapper with his teeth. "As long as we keep it that way."


	12. Probability

The Doctor's wardrobe has become an art installation, a museum of costume extending over multiple floors, down corridors, into side rooms and festooning the spiral staircases. As far as the Master can tell, the Doctor hasn't thrown anything away in all the time he's been travelling the universe.

Leather button boots for someone with feet the size of the Master's hands sit alongside all-terrain boots that would do Bigfoot proud. Entire sections are devoted to the various colourways and sizes of a particular shirt, to ceremonial dress for a galactic quadrant. Or to the lack of it. He lifts down a grass skirt, its woven accoutrements clearly designed to enhance and display the male form in priapic splendour. You can't imagine the Doctor wearing it—not any of him, but especially not the current face, who looks recklessly casual if he loosens his tie, and looks incomplete if he isn't wearing his long, brown coat.

Size of wearer plays no part in whatever system of organisation governs the wardrobe. The Master would steal one of the Doctor's own shirts merely to annoy him, having located the small alcove that houses his current preferred wardrobe, but he's too broad in the back and must look for something larger. Besides, he's felt unusually comfortable in the hospital gown, without the constant tug, twist and tightness of tailored seams and cuffs; without weight on his shoulders or pressure on his skin. One less distraction frittering away at his thought processes. Time Lord robes are out of the question, although the Doctor does keep some, tucked away in a small room where the lighting fixtures are broken. Gallifrey through the ages, mainly in the Prydonian colours of deep red and subtle gold. Touching them causes a pang, a wistful something that the Master doesn't care to examine closely.

He doesn't mourn Gallifrey. When he allows himself to think of it, his mood is vengeful, yet undirected. Part of him believes, as the Doctor surely must, that the destruction of their home world cleansed a festering wound in the fabric of the universe. That he did everybody a favour, including himself.

Gallifrey was corrupt when they were children. It was an obscenity by the time they restored Rassilon as President. But it couldn't be allowed to fall to the Daleks, of all things. Of all the fates. Anything but that. If he's right—and he knows he's right—then the Doctor's way was clean.

His body is weakened, fighting him, calling for rest again. The Master reluctantly sits, midway up a winding filigree staircase, and surveys the levels of the TARDIS below him. He's gone far enough to escape the worst of the Doctor's psychic fallout, along with the nauseating mess he's made of Harkness overnight. Closing his eyes, the Master tries again to cut his mind off from all outside influences. He can shut out the Doctor's TARDIS, though he prefers to know what it's up to. He can mute and muffle his awareness of the Doctor, their prior connection, and of Captain Jack's conscious mind with its undercurrent of spilling, frenetic human emotions, but his presence remains a constant. A battering ram against his mind, ambush waiting around every corner. How does the Doctor stand it?

Trudging up one more level, the Master finds what he needs—a loose black tunic and looser leggings in a synthetic cloth so advanced that it mimics the properties of the finest natural fibres, but with a forgiving stretch. Clothes made to move in—some athletic activity or martial art, probably. He claims two sets, then begins to retrace his steps.

He feels... He feels...

Even the word gives him pause. 'Feelings'. There's always been a raging storm inside him, a burning passion that defied definition and boundaries, but in this regeneration his individual emotions are so... immediate. So inextricably part of him. He's experiencing them as he never did before, so raw, so pure; they take his breath away. He has no time to observe the passing-butterfly emotions that drive him into reaction and action, because he's fully occupied either living them to the full or fighting them into submission. Doing either while Harkness grates on his last nerve is next to impossible, but something has changed by the time he returns to the infirmary. There's no escaping the awareness that he's close to an abomination, but whatever else has been leaking out of his human head all day, the Doctor's managed to put a lid on it. Thank _god_.

He gets himself clean, sterile no less, in the spare and functional shower unit attached to the infirmary. No amount of searching the medical supplies turns up a razor or clippers, so he trims his beard bristle-short with scissors from one of the first aid kits, using the back of a stainless-steel kidney dish for a vanity mirror. The Doctor provided all this stuff in his cell, toiletries and creature comforts and a battery-operated shaver, but he isn't going back there. Not even to fetch what he needs. He thinks that he was dying in that room—dying by inches in the silence and the isolation, with nothing to do. Nothing to occupy his mind. Now he has a puzzle to solve. One the Doctor discovered by chance, which is galling, but he needs this. Like a lifeline to a drowning man, he needs this mental exercise, this sense of purpose and progress.

The Doctor is finally listening to him. For as long as that lasts, the Master is committed to remaining cooperative, which unfortunately includes not destroying Captain Jack's tiny mind merely because he leaves it lying around as a psychic trip-hazard. Mind you, his mind can't be as weak as that, as limited as that. Not if he withstood the Doctor's lack of discipline for as long as it took them to achieve mutual... whatever. He doesn't even want to know, except that a nagging part of him keeps wandering back there to the not-knowing, dragging his train of thought with it to worry at the empty space. The Doctor and Harkness, Time Lord and grating affront to everything a Time Lord stands for. Do they kiss? Does the Doctor bend over for him, or pound him into a bulkhead? He can't picture any of it.

He's seen the Doctor in every state from near-death to mortal terror, joy to blinding ecstasy, grief to rage, but he's never seen him... carnal. Not carnal enough for a human like Jack Harkness, whose life mission appears to be to seed his DNA throughout the time stream by means of inseminating everybody he meets. There was a running joke at the Ministry of Defence. _'What I wouldn't give for a mole inside Torchwood.' 'We had one, until Captain Jack went and shagged it.'_

The Doctor's idea of a sensual good time with humans used to be a pot of tea and a really good biscuit.

The Master smooths down the flowing black cloth, accustoming himself to his range of movement, to the weight and stretch. There's a belt, but he leaves it off. What is that—this sudden dislike of restrictive clothing? He's always dressed for effect, for convenience, not comfort. Why this, why now?

Still, the effect is pleasing enough. Black on black, always imposing. The looseness of the cloth can't conceal the lean, youthful figure beneath. He likes this form. Up until now, he's liked the quirks of personality and habit that came with it. But an ailing body, a mystery fault within its very cells—he never signed up for that. He wanted vitality, vigour and strength to match that of the Doctor. He's not got any of them today, just a mild headache and the urge to sleep away the rest of his life.

Then again, the Doctor's looked better, himself—unravelling before the Master's very eyes as the days wear on, the way he was meant to aboard the _Valiant_. All that bottled-up anger that he masks with gentle platitudes and strained pleas for solidarity. As if being the last of their kind means not being who they are as individuals—fundamentally and always at odds with each other.

A footfall at the doorway. The Doctor, of course. He won't be allowing Harkness within easy reach for a while.

"Why don't we find you a room?"

"You want us to pick out curtains? Sweet." He doesn't glance over, but begins the next task on his list—fetches a vial and, perching on the edge of a bed, draws a small sample of his own blood. He can feel the Doctor itching to approach, to take over the job, to smother him in nervous solicitude. "I don't suppose Jack's the curtains type, but don't look at me."

"You're going to stay here then?" The Doctor is sceptical. Weary.

"Anything else would imply that I plan to settle down, wouldn't it? That I plan to stay here and be your... what am I?"

Sluggish blood fills the vial. He watches it, captivated, until it's full. Slides out the needle and leaves the tiny wound oozing. On to the next thing. He drops from the bed, not with his customary easy grace but with an aching wince, and crosses the room to slot the vial into the blood-analysis machine. Still doesn't look at the Doctor.

"Your pet? No, you keep the humans for that. Not another Time Lord. Not even you. Your prisoner? But no, you haven't the balls to keep me locked away, have you?" The antiquated lab equipment starts flashing and whirring as he programs a set of tests. "Your property. I think you think I'm that. Yours to keep."

He hasn't raised his voice. There's no heat behind his words, not even a decent effort at spite. Just thinking aloud, following his thoughts where they lead him and presenting them to the Doctor, as though they were still discussing the mechanics of artron energy, like yesterday. Yesterday when they talked, for the first time in forever. But the Doctor is provoked, nonetheless. It's easy to sting him, and the Master is learning that the more quietly he does it, the calmer he is, the more the Doctor feels it.

"Stop it," he says from the doorway. Just quietly. Then, "Please."

The Master faces him. That fresh, young body shouldn't look so haggard on him, but the Doctor looks wrung-out and miserable. What, did he come here for sympathy?

"Fixed your pet freak?" He asks it pleasantly enough. Lightly enough. The Doctor's squirming is amusing, even if the cause is revolting. "Are you really that hard up for it? A human?"

The Doctor's eyes harden. Instead of anger, he resorts to a perky, safe sarcasm.

"Excuse me, but am I talking to Mister Lucy Saxon?"

The Master blinks at him. Startled.

"You think I wanted her for her _mind?_ " He laughs, unable to stop himself—explosive gusts of incredulity that make the Doctor's lips go all tight with disapproval. "I never touched her mind. Why would I? I didn't need to control her. Why else would I touch a _human?_ "

"Half the ship heard you."

Really? He's taken aback by that. Reaches into the memories that he's been avoiding—Lucy's hot flesh and dull conversation; his nights with her, discovering the appetites of youthful and vigorous humanoid flesh—the lingering satisfaction of lengthy, indulgent sex. It's never too late to learn, and this regeneration enjoys bodily contact in a way that used to repel him in most of his other lifetimes.

Lucy did make a lot of noise. A _lot_ of noise.

"Like I said. I didn't need to control her. She was—" he can't resist running his hands down his sides, ribs to hips, parodying his newfound sensuality of the flesh. "Very keen." He licks his lips. Smiles. Leers. The Doctor turns his face away.

"She's your wife," he says, almost too softly to hear, his reproach not even finding its way into words. The Master hears it anyway, unspoken. _'You owe her respect'._

"She's _human_ ," the Master retorts. Human marriage—muttered words and a paper certificate, as limited and as ephemeral as the humans are. Briefly, he regrets destroying his wedding ring, that uncomfortable, tangible sign. He wonders if Lucy's still wearing hers. "I was trying to impregnate her, not bond with her."

"What?"

Has age made the Doctor slow? He was there—he was right there. For a year!

"Or did you think I planned to breed my new Time Lord Empire with you?"

The Doctor flaps his mouth like a goldfish, lost for words, or attempting to pick from too many. It's highly amusing. The Master folds his arms and waits.

"Breed?" More goldfish. Two steps into the room, long coat swirling about his legs. "She's _human_."

Slow, slow, slow! The rest of the world is so _slow!_ Is it any wonder they drive him mad?

"I didn't spend eighteen months pandering to a fool like Lazarus just to have a bit of fun with your body clock," he says, straining for patience. A muscle twitches in the Doctor's cheek, tightening his jaw. Wonderful. "I was working towards engineering human compatibility. Specifically, Lucy's. And before you start preaching, she was a willing volunteer, my consort. The co-founder of a new empire. Who wouldn't want that?"

 _'Anyone halfway sane,'_ is written all over the Doctor's face.

"The Time Lords are _gone_. There was never going to be a new empire. There are never going to be any more like us. There's just _us,_ left to remember them and... and honour the legacy that burned." The Doctor's voice cracks. That hurts to watch—a tug, a sharp pang between his hearts. "You and me." The Master shifts from foot to foot, uneasy with the sensation. He always cried easily, the Doctor, whether for joy, grief or rage. Once, he'd have known what flavour the tears were even as they streaked down the Doctor's cheeks. That connection still tugs between them, frayed and bloody and horribly, usefully exposed.

"Tell me." It isn't what he wanted from the victory; this heavy hurt in his own chest—this unease with the Doctor's pain. Some things are easier when he's far removed, so busy holding himself together against the drums that he can barely register the external. This cuts him, and he wants to stop it and go back to his blood tests.

Instead, he goes towards the Doctor. Every step brings those wet cheeks into sharper focus; those dark eyes that bleed with loss and loneliness. "Tell me what you did. Gallifrey was _mine_." He slams a clenched fist between his own hearts, releasing the anger that's pooling there like so much poison. "Mine as much as yours. Tell me!"

The Doctor shakes his head, breathing hard. Fighting his emotions, but dealing with the freak has left him weak. He sheds grief, waves of it, twisted up with a yearning that grasps at their old connection, pulling them towards one another.

"I can't. I'm sorry, I just... can't." He looks as though his knees are about to buckle. The Master weighs the options. Knock him down, that would be easy. Strike him for his refusal—that would make a valid point. Park him in a chair before he falls down? That would probably break him for good, one small act of kindness just now.

A short, shrill series of beeps announce that his blood tests are complete. They both ignore it—use the momentary distraction to gather themselves.

He takes the Doctor by the arms. By the elbows. Draws him nearer and studies his face for signs of deception, evasion, loathing and contempt. There's only pain, pure as it gets, the sort he's worked for lifetimes to inflict only to see the blow glance off and the Doctor dance away, unscathed.

"Then tell me what it felt like."

The Doctor gasps in a breath, trying to get a grip on himself, but it only makes him start trembling. The Master, out of the corner of his eye, judges the distance to the nearest chair, but the Doctor's legs don't give out. His resistance does.

"If felt like dying," he grates, his teeth trying to clench shut to stop the words. "And then I didn't. I lived, all alone. Just me in the silence."

It's the truth. The Master can see that—feel how he fights the urge, the _need_ , to reach out with his mind and find something that isn't the empty desolation. But there's only him. Unless you count Harkness. Which he doesn't. He tightens his hands. Shakes the Doctor, who doesn't resist. Wouldn't resist, now, if the Master passed judgement and executed him for his crime.

"How long?"

"I stopped counting." There's something childlike about the Doctor in this state, this open-wound state that genocide has made of him. It's the incomprehension—that look in his eyes as though he's begging you to explain it to him. Why he did it. Why it hurts. "I only count the days when they're here." The last is whispered, confessional, laced with dread. The pets, he means. The companions who plod their lives away in narrow, linear time. "I think I went mad at first. I regenerated and then..."

The word, the name, actually blossoms out of his pain. Crimson, frail. Too perfect.

"Rose."

The Doctor snatches away from him and stumbles backwards into a bank of life-support machinery. The pile of kidney dishes that'd been left on top crashes to the floor behind, ringing until they fall still.

Startled he might be, but he's not crushed by her name. Only by hearing the Master say it—by the fact that he knows it. _'Fool'_.

"Why don't you go and get her back?"

"There's no way. Not anymore. How did you... Who told you..."

"You did." He really didn't know; the Master sees that clearly. "Your tête-à-tête with Captain Jack on Malcassairo. You were on open comms. Didn't you know?" Obviously not. The Doctor pulls himself up straight again and a grim expression replaces his naked distress.

"It's hard to remember," he replies, quietly. "That you're him. The Professor." His mouth twists in distaste at the comparison. "That... decent, kind man."

 _'Yes, and didn't you simper? Didn't you just love him, you gullible old wreck? Like you were made for each other.'_ The Master feels sick.

"Don't delude yourself, I'm not him. I have his memories, though—" he puts a hand to his head, thrusting those memories away as hard as he can, "—it feels like they've been through a blender with a batch of razor wire. He wasn't me, that was the whole point. The Chameleon Arch is more than a disguise."

"I know."

He does, too—he isn't lying. The Master has never met another Time Lord who's undergone the process, yet both of them have. The only two left standing when the dust has settled. The only two left standing at the end of the whole bloody _universe_. That's the synchronicity of their lives. It always pulls them back into each other's orbit, regardless of whether they seek one another out or stay away. It always offers them this commonality, over and over, that they view always from opposite sides. Out of reach, out of step.

The Master's never believed that the cosmos has a plan, a design for him, but if he calls Professor Yana to mind he can see the idea of one. Just for an instant, until he loses his grasp on those slippery, lacerating memories again. Yana would see a purpose in all this. They're polar opposites, he and the Doctor, but neither of them would claim to represent what Gallifrey stood for. As last scions go, they make a poor showing. If some force, some will is busily shaping the cosmos to its own design, then it has a warped sense of humour. Or a keen sense of irony.

For this moment, he opts to thwart it, that controlling hand he doesn't believe in, and walks away from the Doctor—away from the exchange that can only escalate and lead them precisely nowhere.

It almost undoes him when the Doctor says his name.

"Master."

"Martha Jones heard it all too." It's the first nasty thing he can think of to deflect whatever the Doctor plans to say next. "Everything you told heroic, undying Jack. Never kiss and make up on open comms, it's embarrassing."

It's a poor choice of memory to use for cheap ammunition, and promptly consumes him in Professor Yana's stampeding confusion. His hands fumble with the test results, blanking the screen that he meant to zoom. Human memory, Time Lord mind, both reverberating to the sound of drums. He catches himself against the machinery, setting off alerts as his hands slide down over switches and dials, failing to find purchase. He grabs for a solid handhold, the edge of the bench where the blood analysis machine sits, and stays there with his eyes closed until he can decide which way is up and whether it's then or now.

The Doctor puts an arm across his back, gripping tightly enough that he won't fall if he loses consciousness.

"You need to lie down."

"No." The Master focuses on one word at a time, forcing each one past the resurgence of the pounding drumbeat in his skull. He pushes the human memories back to the periphery, but the damage is done. The pain lingers. "I need to work."

"What changed?"

"What?" He tries to push himself away from the bench, to straighten, but he hasn't the strength in his arms.

"Just now. You crossed the room and you were fine, and now you can barely stand. What happened?"

That's why he doesn't snuff the Doctor out of existence in the name of a quiet life. That's why he never has. Because sometimes, their perspectives converge across the void and complete something—complete a thought, the way they did when they were children together, tumbling in the long grass and driving one another to a different sort of distraction.

"The Professor. Reliving his memories, it makes it worse. The sound, the drums." He pounds the heel of his hand against his right temple. "Louder. Stronger. Harder. Nearer."

After the last blow, the Doctor grips him by the wrist and drags his hand away to stop him, ignoring his shout of frustration.

"Show me," he urges, "Just show me. I won't let it take you again." Tilting at windmills, that's the Doctor. The fool. But... an ally. They've made that work within living memory, haven't they? The Master allows himself to be helped upright, clutching at the Doctor's forearms until the disorientation subsides and he can see straight. "Listen—"

"You never listened to me," he hisses, swaying on his feet. The oldest resentment of them all, that one, crawling out into the open while his attention is diverted. "Never, you never did, you just talked at me, lectured me like a time-tot at your feet, never gave me a chance. Now, listen to _me_." He grabs the Doctor's face and opens his mind, trying to drive into him like a wrecking ball, to crack him wide open, make him scream with shock and regret and terror, but the Doctor simply yields and lets the onslaught carry him away without a struggle.

They wash up on the shores of shared memory, both gasping in the intensity of it—flood after drought, chaotic, destructive. But bringing new life in its wake, nonetheless. The Doctor grabs his face, levelling them out with his own control, his own will, and the memory that consumes them is from long ago. Kissing in the dust of Gallifrey, embracing one another's minds so completely that their memories of that night are a perfect match, a perfect resonance, even after all this time. It aches so sweetly between them. It thrums in their bones.

That was ecstasy—that night, that bright, pinpoint moment of perfection in a universe made up of pain and shit and unrelenting decay. The Master groans, resisting the temptation to kiss him now, to bind the past to the present and surrender his self-respect to the _wanting_. The Doctor is fighting it too, lashes fluttering against his cheeks, his tongue dabbing at his own bottom lip before he bites it, stifling a groan, and begins to push the memory away from both of them. The Master rests his forehead against the Doctor's, the Doctor who's hushing him and soothing with whispered words, as if he's an injured dog lying in the road. Just another stray.

And then he hears it. The Doctor, his empathy always a sponge for another being's pain—he hears it, the drums, the four-beat hell, and he cries out and snatches away, clutching at the nearest bed, the one the Master was so recently tied to.

"But... I..."

He heard it, felt it driving him onward, driving him mad. _He heard it._ Didn't he?

Didn't he?!

"Tell me you heard it," he demands, following the Doctor and grabbing his shirt front, preventing further retreat by ruining a rather smart silk tie. "Tell me!"

"I heard it," the Doctor murmurs, eyes distant, expression glazed. "But I..." He blinks rapidly, trying to pull himself together and focus on the Master, who tightens his grip on his handful of cloth. "All your life?" His voice goes reedy, the horror turning his eyes into two pools of abject pity. Disgusted, the Master lets go and gives him a shove in the chest for good measure.

Part of him dances with elation—wants to sing it from the rooftops, to crow with orgasmic relief because it's real, it's really real, his torment, and his belief feels so much better as a certainty. A certainty he can do something about. A certainty he can track down and slaughter.

"It's real," he murmurs, and sits down hard on the metal stool where Harkness sat vigil. "Isn't it?" Certainty, solidity, fades so fast. He looks to the Doctor, pleading.

"It's real. I heard it. No, I _felt_ it." The Doctor is quickly shaking off the shock of losing his own certainty, of gaining a new reality; he's beginning to interrogate the facts. The Master feels his muscles relax, shoulders dropping a full two inches because his burden just became someone else's to share. That's novel, that's unexpected. He almost topples forwards off the stool, but the Doctor swoops in and catches him, rights him, then embraces him, hard, before he can think about getting away.

At least he doesn't smell of the freak.

"I'm dizzy," he says, muffled by the Doctor's shirt front, curious that he feels curiosity rather than anger at being smothered this way. "Not dying."

The Doctor tightens his arms.

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm sorry." For once, just for once in his life, that isn't an apology, a hook baited and dangled in a search for forgiveness or to trigger shame in others; it's not a teary bleat of self-pity and self-loathing. It's merely a statement of fact. He's sorry. All this time, and now the Doctor is truly sorry.

The Master feels like weeping, but flat-out refuses and twists his body instead, pushing with his palms against the Doctor's ribs until the sentimental idiot gives up and lets go.

Even when they shared their minds and their kisses in that innocent bliss, they weren't this—clingy, needy, desperate for the scraps the other would leave them. Not even then. But they're walking wounded, now. Genocide crushes the Doctor, step by weary step, while the drumbeat grows deafening and gradually beats the Master into the ground.

There's a word that catches his attention, makes him wonder why he chose it. 'Gradually.' He examines it, dissects it, tests its veracity against those memories—his own and Yana's—that he dares to access. Comes up with the answer to the Doctor's next question before the Doctor even knows he's about to ask it.

"It wasn't always like this. Before the War, all my regenerations, all my—" The Master still doesn't have the words for those means by which he survived once his regenerations ran out. It wasn't always life. Sometimes merely an existence, diminished, nothing that a Time Lord ought to be. Yet the sound was always with him and gradually growing more pervasive, more persistent, more detrimental to his clarity of mind. "It was already there, when we were children, but... background noise. Like the sound of your own hearts beating. Filtered out."

"Funny, that." The Doctor taps him on the chest. "Four beats. If it was just your imagination, just a delusion, it makes as much sense as anything, as much sense as hallucinating a whole oompah band complete with polka and lederhosen, but real?" Tap tap, tap tap. "What's that about?"

"Not a coincidence."

"I doubt it." Again, the Doctor lingers, touching him. Two fingertips resting between his hearts. "Don't you?"

It's always defied his own analysis, the problem slippery in his mind, like a perception filter or the most persistent hypnotic suggestion. The thought blinds him with pain—sudden, sharp, searing behind his eyes with a white light that screams. The Doctor catches him as he falls forward, dropping with him so that they share the impact with the cold, hard floor.

He tastes blood, feels it trickling down the back of his throat. Coughs in disgust and discomfort, spraying the Doctor's jacket and shirt with watery-red. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and leaves a smear of blood there too. He stares at it. Where did that come from? And why is he kneeling on the floor, half on top of the Doctor?

"Master." The Doctor's voice is hard, unyielding. "Look at me." The absolute certainty of him is almost welcome when everything else is falling away into confusion. He looks. Feels the Doctor's mind, his will, the second their eyes meet, and understands that he's been underestimating the man for a long time. Shaped to a purpose, to the purpose of saving someone, all his vacillation and foolish emotion peels away. All that's left is intent—his force of will. The Doctor grips his face, fingertips digging in hard, his mind a blunt force and pushing, pushing for their joining.

The Master resists by reflex. Unsure of his footing, he scrambles for firmer ground—his mastery of the mind, beginning with his own. Blood streams from his nose, across his lips, down his chin.

"The moment you thought about it," the Doctor presses. Words, mind, will, all combined to push at the barriers between them, but he doesn't resort to force. Only to these words, to hammering with reason, one exact word at a time. "Master, the second you thought about that coincidence, this." He nods to the blood, to the mess they're in on the floor. "This is how we found you on the beach. Blood on your hands, your face, your nose. What were you running from, eh? What made you do that? Because something did. Why don't you remember? Something's stopping you from taking too close a look at that coincidence, and that means it isn't one."

"God," he mutters through the wetness, "You do go on."

"Don't I?" Letting go of him, the Doctor pulls a cotton handkerchief from an inner pocket and holds it out. "Did you ever work out why, old friend? Why this gob keeps flapping until everyone in a room wants to knock me on the head or throw me out of the nearest airlock?"

He takes the cloth and wipes his lips and chin, then presses it to his nose. The blood is already slowing, and the Master smiles behind the bunched-up handkerchief, amused against his will.

"But no-one ever does."

"Nope."

Of course he knows why. It's misdirection, a cheap conjuring trick. It's as simple as that. As sly and as patently brilliant as that. It just fooled whatever triggered this nosebleed, for starters. Already the giddy panic is receding, the blood stopping, the pain easing. His sense of self comes back to him, breath by breath, until he can take the handkerchief away without leaking everywhere.

"One condition," he says, as the Doctor reaches for him again, intent on finding the truth.

"What?"

"When we find out who did this to me, you don't get in my way."

"I can't promise that. Not while you're a threat to everyone, everything else." The Doctor cups his face, gently this time. "But I will stop it. I swear to you."

Some words carve their truth into the fabric of spacetime. Words in their language, their dead, unspoken language. That's the one the Doctor chooses to give voice to his vow. He presses his fingertips into the Master's cheekbones and brings his face so close that they might almost kiss. "If we can find who's done this to you, then it _will_ stop."

The words caress and persuade, driving the promise deep into the warp and weft of reality; the promise of help, the promise of action, the promise that such a crime against his person will not go unavenged. Their shared language slides over their skin, a sweet shiver of mutual regret, of an experience that only the two of them can share—a power that only they can wield, now. The Doctor's vow embeds itself into reality, tearing itself a space in which to exist. Settling. Becoming. Scattering all other possibility away.

The Master lifts his hands. Touches skin, finds out nerve-endings, so careful. Shuts his eyes. And quietly lets the Doctor in.


	13. Nota Bene

They're in a high-ceilinged room of pale pink, polished marble, ringed around with columns and shallow steps. At the top of the steps, encircling the room, a hundred closed wooden doors. At the centre of this room they face one another, visualising themselves a physical form for the other to interact with. The Master wears the long, grey gown of an invalid. The Doctor hadn't expected that kind of honesty from him—not in here where he can create himself in any form he chooses. He'd half braced himself for the vision of Harold Saxon, all sharp suit and aggressive, chaotic energy. It throws him—makes him wonder if the other man is even less well than he's realised. He controls his fear with an effort. Thoughts are exposed, in this shared place, if they don't maintain absolute control over themselves.

The Doctor opens his eyes on the real world, concentration failing him for a second when he's caught out by how _good_ the connection flowing between them feels. The Master's eyes are shut. He looks peaceful in the stillness of absolute intent, but his eyes are sunken, underscored with bruise-blue smudges of fatigue, and he's still covered in blood. It's matting in his short beard and smeared across his skin.

"Shut your eyes," the Master says, aloud. "I look bloody awful."

He shuts them, swallowing an apology that would only make things worse. The Master's irritation buzzes about them like a wasp as they settle into an otherwise passable psychic connection, the marble hall solidifying around them. This is worlds away from the instinctive grab they made earlier, with its blinding riot of unfiltered thought and random images. _This_ is how it's meant to be when two Time Lords, on those rare occasions when it becomes regrettably necessary, deign to share their minds with one another. Cool, calm, sober. Controlled, and framed inside a visual representation of hard discipline and high-minded order.

"Well?" The Master gestures around them, impatient. "Do you hear it, or not?"

"No." The Doctor only wishes it had been that easy. "You?"

"That's why we're here, isn't it?" Testy, nervous, the Master folds his arms, as though he's trying to warm himself. He's not going to be able to sustain this level of concentration for long—he doesn't have the resources, though the Doctor knows he'd sooner die than admit it. "I can always hear it, remember?"

"Okay." They can't afford to quarrel, not if their time here is limited. "What makes it worse?"

"Being locked in a tiny room with nothing to do," the Master snaps. Resentment flows with the words, a dull griping not far removed from fear. But it's a valid question, relevant, so he expands on that cheap shot of an answer. "Anger. Being Yana, _remembering_ being Yana. Lack of sleep. This regeneration."

The Doctor nods.

"Show me. Bad as it gets." He only shudders a little bit at the memory of the Master's consciousness colliding with his, earlier. That felt unrestrained, unfiltered, but it can't have been completely uncontrolled. He needs to see the problem in isolation, without that emotional onslaught and without their past getting in the way. "Can you isolate it?"

The Master swallows, lowering his gaze to the floor and pulling his emotions in close. Fear still leaks out—a cringing, miserable reluctance that tells the Doctor he's just asked a man to stick his unprotected hand into a naked flame. A long hesitation, then a nod.

"It's hard to come back from."

"Come on." He holds out his right hand. The Master looks at it like it's booby-trapped. "Show me. I won't leave you."

"Promises, promises," the Master growls, but grabs his outstretched hand, tugging him off-balance so that their bodies slam together. The impact shatters the marble illusion, these physical forms, and the Doctor feels as though he's drowning while the Master drags him down and down, deeper, right into his private slice of hell.

It's overwhelming. In the darkness, it boxes them in, crushes them into a smaller and smaller space, making the Doctor think of a million pairs of boots marching on hard ground in rhythmical lock-step—stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, pounding in time with their pulses. There is a drumbeat in it somewhere—a crisp, rattling, military top note of cutting precision, _rat-a-tat-tat_ , but the rest is just mind-numbing cacophony. Just _pain_. He needs to get away, but the Master can't escape it with him, so he stays. Focuses. Grits his teeth and tries until he can feel their joined hands once more, their bone-crushing grip on each other—their anchor to themselves.

The Doctor realises that he's screaming, screaming with his mind, but he can't hear himself. It's a _force_ , a pressure wave, hammering into his consciousness over and over and over to the rhythm of his hearts. He steadies himself, somehow—enough to remember who he is, why he's here, and that he has a promise to keep. He tries reaching out, protective, trying to shield the Master from the worst of it, though all he wants to do is curl in on himself and make it stop.

 _'Is it always like this?!'_ Meaningful communication is like trying to shout over the howl of a hurricane. With the question goes his horror, his terror, his pain. All of it, his responses laid bare. When he makes contact at last, he feels the Master laughing, a sense of ragged triumph shot through with bitter despair; a soul being shaken into pieces.

 _'See, Doctor? This is how you've been killing me. Do you like it, shall we stay?'_ He gets every drop of the Master's venom, all that cruel glee—a taste of what it feels like to want to die, and how it feels to want to turn this drive into destruction, annihilation. ' _Still think you can defeat this? Still think you can 'help'?'_

 _'Yes!'_ The Doctor pours his defiance and pain into the grasping void, grabs for the solidity of conscious thought; wraps the refusal to surrender around himself and the Master with strength born out of immediate necessity and utter terror. It mutes the drums, the pain, and they see one another again; see the sketched outlines of that marble hall with its doors of compartmentalised thought. They're gripping each other's arms, tight, their faces twisted in pain and effort, a struggle with sheer terror. The Master's looks around them, confused and frightened, trying to understand what he's done.

_'What did you... How did you?'_

 _'Back now,'_ the Doctor urges, struggling to articulate it because he's doing all he can just to hold that shield between them and the nightmare. How long can a shield made of stubbornness hold? _'Take us all the way back.'_

The Master's so shocked by the respite that he complies. The din recedes, the blackness falls away, the cold marble solidifies, and they both stagger, letting go of each other

The Doctor can still hear the drums, and at this safe distance it _is_ just a sound, just a drumbeat. Just constant, repeating, a merciless compulsion to listen, to follow the sound with his mind. Curious, he pushes at his perception of the sound—tries to push those four beats even further away from himself, feeding the shield he's made with the psychic energy of his shock, his grateful relief at being back on solid ground. It's easy. He's startled, then optimistic, opens his mouth to speak, and then the Master gives him a ringing smack across the ear—open-handed but with all his weight and fury behind it.

"Easy?!" Livid, he raises his fist and follows the Doctor—one step, two steps, then the Doctor holds his ground and lifts his hands, placating. "Day in, day out, your whole life, do you think that would be so _easy?!_ " The punch can't land, not now he's ready for it, but the Master still tries. It's lash out or fly apart, lost to the pain. The Doctor catches the flying fist, allows the Master's momentum to carry him past, off-balance and yelling in frustration. The Doctor goes after him, catches at his clothes, hauls him upright and drags him against his own body. Holds on until the struggles stop, until the Master stops swearing and trying to knee him in the groin, then loosens his hold and clasps the other man by the back of the neck, bringing their cheeks together. The Master's skin feels fever-hot, and his harsh breaths are too loud in this hard, empty place.

_'Fight me later, all you like. Stay with me, now. Calm down, I've got you. I'm here.'_

"I hate you," the Master whispers, but he goes limp in the Doctor's arms, hands dropping to his sides as he gives up the resistance, exhausted. "I hate you, I hate you!"

The Doctor hushes him, trying to absorb the raw emotion without flinching; trying to understand it. He can't comprehend it, can't fit it to the things the Master has done to him—can't see a shred of reason in it, or fathom what humiliating him was meant to accomplish. Unwitting, he allows the Master to see all that—the anger that he's bitten down for twelve, long Earth months; his fear for his old friend; the horror of seeing him unhinged; his fear of being alone again when it all went wrong. The Master pulls at his mind, searching for any hint of gloating over the latest victory, but finds nothing. Only more hurt, more weariness, more need; the forgiveness that's costing him everything he has to give.

They melt into a deeper exploration, a taste of the past, of the time they went deeper and deeper all night while they kissed in the dark. It felt a bit like this, but pure—simple, while everything is tangled and knotted with ugliness, now. They shudder together in the memory, the Master's hands coming to rest at his waist, gripping his coat. They resist each other, neither wanting to reveal more than they learn, but they can't let go. Trust died on Gallifrey, and they can taste its ashes—burning acid in the Master's throat, a dusty choke in the Doctor's. They kill one another without even trying, but they still can't let each other go.

Despite everything, this is so, so much better than what they've been; the antithesis of being alone. They could choose this forever, standing together in the ruin of their heritage, knowing without understanding. The Doctor moves his hands over the shivering back, moves his head just a fraction to the left, and kisses the Master. Absurd, mind to mind, that the touch of imaginary lips has any meaning, but it does; the taste of their mingled tears does, and the gasp they share when the Master recoils without dragging them apart, only to yank him closer still, one arm clamping across his back, and claim his mouth in bitter triumph.

The kiss is heated, rough, half unkind—the Master trying to win and the Doctor refusing to fight. Hips together, hands grasping hold, a kiss saying everything—you could want this forever, this much contact with another living mind, and that's exactly why it was taboo back home; why they were breaking all the rules that night they lay down in the dust. Lost in each other, they could have died in that barn. They could die now, even if neither of them is trying to kill the other.

Sanity prevails. They part with a mutual moan of reluctance, pulling back into themselves where it's comfortless and lonely. The kiss lingers longer, fierce and delicious, a passionate struggle, until the Master roughly grabs a handful of his hair and pulls their heads apart by sheer effort of will. His eyes are bright with fever, deep with desire.

"Look at that," he murmurs, dropping his gaze for a second to take in how they've mashed their hips together. They're both breathing hard, wearing their state of arousal as though it were physical. That would've revolted the Master, once, but now it makes him smirk with a knowing satisfaction. He tightens his hold on the Doctor's hair, dragging his head back further. "Turns out that if we were the last two left alive, we actually would." His voice is soft, slow, almost tender, dropping into an impassioned whisper for the last two words. Slowly opening his fingers, he releases his captured fistful of the Doctor's hair.

"Yeah." The Doctor tries to catch his breath, calm down. Overwhelmed, he starts to shove the tangle of blazing emotion down deep, the way he always does when he can't find a better use for it, then remembers what he did when the drumbeat was killing them and pushes it all outward, instead, the same as he did with his terror. The distant sound of drumming gets softer, easier to ignore, and the Master sags against his body in uncomplicated relief, hands catching feebly at the Doctor's upper sleeves to steady himself.

"How are you _doing_ that?" he demands.

"No idea." With a massive effort, the Doctor blinks and breathes his way past the moment. Whatever they just did, whatever that is (and it's _insane_ , it's wrong, it's obscene, it's about a thousand years too late and an insult to the memory of the Time Lords) it's not why they're here. "We should take a break. You're exhausted."

"No," the Master grates, redoubling his hold on their connection as if that's going to convince the Doctor he's not struggling to maintain it—or as if he thinks the Doctor might cut and run after what just happened. "Tell me what you're doing, if it's so 'easy'!

"Honestly, I've no idea. I just reacted, that's all. Threw everything I had against it because I was scared. I can still hear it," he says, quietly. "We need to separate and find out if I'm hearing it through you, or..."

"Or if it's catching?" The Master's face breaks into a huge, malicious grin and he stands unaided, taking a couple of steps backward so he can see the Doctor properly. "Oh, that's good. You're on a roll today, Doctor. First you smash Harkness wide open, now this. We didn't even think of that, did we? That it could be _contagious_. Wonderful." His eyes sparkle as he tilts back his head, stares up at the gilded ceiling—fever, fatigue, lust and laughter all rolled in together, a glint hard as diamond. He taps his finger against his right temple, four rapid beats. He sways on his feet. "Welcome to the asylum."

He drops to his knees, hard, without warning. The Doctor isn't fast enough to catch him before he hits the marble—before they're both thrown clear of the mindscape when the Master topples sideways onto the infirmary floor, out cold.

It answers one question quite neatly, at least. Even with the Master unconscious, the Doctor can still hear the sound of the drums.

He feels for the pulses at the Master's throat and then sags back against the frame of the nearest bed, shutting his eyes. His body is a riot of conflict—the physical and psychic shock of that abrupt severance; a sharp pain in his head that seems intent on reminding him not to be so careless the next time; an uncomfortable, bodily state of arousal answering to the heated kiss and that taste of deep, intimate contact. The Doctor groans his dismay to nobody in particular, and gently bangs the back of his skull against the tubular steel behind him.

They're not kids any more! He shouldn't have let that indulgence happen, and _definitely_ shouldn't have started kissing him! It's not as if they don't both know how it would end if they ever...

Breathing slowly, he starts to sort himself out—tells his body to quiet down, his headache that nobody is _actually_ driving a six-inch spike into his right eye socket, and the sound of drums where it can shove itself.

_'Stupid, stupid, stupid!'_

It's only a couple of minutes before the Master opens his eyes, conscious but too weak to pick himself up off the floor. The Doctor lays a hand on his shoulder, pats him in mute reassurance, and goes back to slumping against the nearest support. He doesn't feel much like getting up off the floor, either.

"How long?" the Master demands, still trying to push against the floor with his hands.

"Two minutes. You're fine. Rest a minute." He isn't fine, though, if he has to ask how long it's been since he lost consciousness. "How do you feel?"

"Sore, sick and extremely pissed off. Yourself?"

"I meant," the Doctor says, straining for enough patience to get through the sentence, "The sound in your head. Was it just in there, or is it still helping?"

He waits, gives the Master time to work out the answer, and almost jumps out of his skin when the other man grabs him by the wrist.

"What is this?" There's a sharp tug in his mind, a thread of connection between the two of them that shouldn't be there. The Master moves his hand lower, grasping the Doctor's own hand to put skin against skin, and presses his mind deeper into the connection. He relaxes slightly when he sees that the Doctor was unaware of the link until he pointed it out—that it's not a trick, a trap. A danger.

"That's... different," the Doctor says, warily, feeling out the connection for himself. They meet each other halfway, exchanging curiosity and a hint of mutual indignation; discovering that their headaches match. Neither of them is prepared to concede anything so fragile as alarm at this turn of events. The link is present, yes, and unexplained, but passive—it isn't currently causing a problem, and probably won't unless one of them decides to make it happen. Even the Master has limits, and curled on his side, on the floor, feeling like hell, he's beyond mischief for the minute. The Doctor squeezes his hand—half gratitude, half reassurance. "We should've been thrown clear when you passed out, yes?"

"How should I know?" The Master tries to sit up again, scowling when he can't force his body to obey him. He's breathing too hard when he continues, "To answer your question, yes, it's still _helping_." He uses the word like an expletive. "Whatever you did in there, it's holding. Ah, god, my head is _killing_ me."

"Yeah. Me too." He grabs the bedframe above him and forces his body to go along with the idea of standing. When he's sure that his knees are on board with it, he bends down and gives the Master his hand again. "Come on."

He pulls the Master up and then catches him across the back, making sure he stays on his feet long enough to cross the room and lean against his own bed.

"I feel like I'm dying."

"You're not dying, don't be melodramatic." Bleary-eyed, the Doctor has the TARDIS synthesise two doses of something to take the edge off the headache. "Maybe we ought to have paid more attention in class."

The Master snorts with laughter in spite of himself.

"We were such a pair of little prigs, weren't we? Too stupid to so much as wank each other off while we had the chance."

That's what he sees, looking back on that night? The Doctor shakes his head and busies himself ordering up the medicine. He has a soft spot in each of his hearts for those two boys, for the uncomplicated passion they shared. They seem like strangers now, both of them, but he doesn't hold them in contempt, either for who they were or what they did.

"You hardly know what you're saying," he warns, gently. "Stop there."

"Shan't."

The Doctor rolls his eyes, grabs the new hypospray and presses it against the side of his neck. The relief is instant, though incomplete; pain relief can only address the physical effects of the broken mind link. Meditation and sleep should do the rest.

Drunk on fatigue, the Master leers at him and leans nearer when he gets near enough to administer the drug.

"You can't still be that much of a prig," he says, merely blinking a couple of times as the pain relief takes effect. "Not if you're doing handsome Jack. They say he's all kinds of 'sophisticated'."

"Stop it," the Doctor mutters.

" _I_ didn't introduce tongues, in there."

"Yeah, and I didn't subject you to physical and mental torture for the past year," the Doctor snaps. He's shocked by his own aggression as he shoves the Master hard against the edge of the bed, keeping him there with a splayed hand against his chest. He's just as shocked by how hard and angry those words are—the power of something unleashed from tight restraint. "Don't make it worse by mocking the one decent, beautiful, _honest_ thing you and I ever did together!"

The Master peers down at his hand, wavering between anger and sardonic amusement.

"Roughing up a sick man, Doctor? That's not like you."

"Leave our past alone," the Doctor warns, loosening his hold on the Master's bloodstained tunic. "If you can't hold that one, beautiful thing sacrosanct, for my sake and your own, then _leave it alone_. Let there be one weapon you won't sink to using, one thing I never have to forgive you for."

He feels rather than sees the capitulation—the shock at the rawness of his words. The Master has no capacity for remorse, but some emotion that fills out the shape of it whispers back to him along the unbidden connection, testing the waters and finding him deadly sincere, brittle with loss, and dangerous. So, so dangerous if you take the last shreds of hope away from him.

"Agreed." The Master pushes against his hand, righting himself with an effort. "This one thing." Give it a minute, maybe two, before the surge of adrenaline wears off and he's incapable of standing once more. The Doctor lets him go and puts some distance between them, throwing the spent hypospray down on a workbench. He leans there, palms on the cold metal, more unwilling than unable to turn and face the Master again. After a while, he hears the other man sit on the bed, then lie down, controlling his breathing carefully.

They should have known, those reckless boys in their tangle of love and rebellion, that they'd end up destroying one another if they didn't stop. And the Master's right, they were idiots. They should have made the most of it while it lasted.

  

  

Jack's on his feet in a second, hurrying around the console and grasping him by the upper arms, assessing him from head to toe in a glance.

"What the hell happened?"

Too late, the Doctor remembers that he must have blood on his face as well as on his clothing. He reaches up, touches a dried smear and grimaces, unable to look Jack in the eye.

"Nosebleed. His," he adds, and gently brushes Jack aside with his arm so he can get to a seat. "And progress, I think." He half thinks. Half doubts it, now, although the unexplained connection to the Master's mind is still there if he looks for it. Still helping him, after their disagreement? He didn't ask. Had to get out of there. Run away. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay." Jack squats beside him, getting another good look at his face whether he likes it or not. "Are you?"

Honest answer? No. He won't be okay until he's subjected himself to another round of meditation, picking up the razor-sharp shards of his own stupidity with the Master, and his earlier carelessness with Jack. He just can't face sitting alone in the dark with only himself for company.

"I can hear the drums," he says, with a cracked note that's part fatigue, part hysterical amusement. "If I start losing my mind, do me a favour and strap me down before I hurt anybody?"

"You got inside his head?"

"Oh, yeah." The Doctor feels drunk, now that he's stopped straining his psychic abilities—elated, exhausted and giddy, like a long-distance runner falling over the finish line. He puts his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and almost moans aloud when Jack puts a warm hand on the back of his neck in comfort. Or solidarity, or reassurance. He could probably find out which—reach out just a little way and challenge that fragile bubble of perfect stillness that Jack's hanging on to so brilliantly. But that would be a mistake. Messy enough already. "I think I need some rest," he observes, as if the fact wasn't obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

"Yeah, I think you do," Jack agrees, deadpan, and gets him on his feet. Avoiding contact with his skin, Jack steers him out of the console room, down a corridor and to the nearest door that has a bed behind it. He opens it, and gives him a gentle push in the right direction. "Is _he_ okay?" he asks, as the Doctor gratefully makes himself acquainted with a lumpy mattress on a narrow brass bedstead. "Should I go—"

"Stay away from him. He's fine." That's a lie, he thinks; not because he wants to hide the truth from Jack but because he's too exhausted to articulate it—can't even think how to explain to anyone what just happened, how to put it in terms that Jack could understand. And because Jack needs to stay well away from the Master until he has more control over that embryonic shield of his. "Please," he mumbles, more to the cold pillow than to Jack. "Stay away."

Jack pulls the door shut, leaving just a crack of light. The Doctor sleeps like the dead.

  

  

The nightmares have teeth. The Doctor wakes with a choked-off cry, soaked in his own sweat and stuck unpleasantly to the pillowcase. He sits up, shivering, perfectly clear about where he is but momentarily at a loss to know _when_ he is. The TARDIS soothes him, slipping herself into the familiar shape of his mind, and he leans on her a moment, grateful to the point of weeping.

Then he gets up, squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and goes to get on with things.

Combining a long, hot shower with meditation works surprisingly well—better than sitting cross-legged like a time-tot in the dark until he loses his temper, at any rate. The Doctor stands with his face to the spray, sorting out his thoughts, his emotions, so that he can gradually expose that residual link with the Master. He thought he'd never seen the like, but he has; the more he explores it, dispassionately and without his head killing him, the more familiar it seems. Still, he can't quite grasp the idea he's having, and lets it go before his curiosity has a chance to turn into agitation.

Food next. He's lasted an hour and a half, and is on his fourth bite of toast, before the faint sound of drums starts to get to him.

Imagine a lifetime of it. Not just the sound, but the not-knowing; the puzzle with no solution. The Doctor tries, and can't. There's not a shred of doubt inside him; he's going to defeat this thing, and sooner rather than later, now that the Master is willing to let him try. Just imagine a whole lifetime of it, though—louder than this, loud to the point of pain, that feeling he had in the dark depths of the Master's torment of being _driven_ by the sound.

He begins to understand. Not the cruelty, not the selfishness, but the lure of inducing external chaos—of making enough noise that it feels a bit like taking control.

The Master's not going to be taking control of anything if he doesn't regain his strength. To that end, the Doctor lightly scrambles a couple of eggs and makes more toast, and finds another can of the cola that seemed to go down well. Even busy with that, even with the memory of that skin-and-bones body under his hands, slumped against him for support, he can't quite convince himself that it isn't some trick on the Master's part—a ploy to get him off-guard.

How do you find trust once you've lost it?

Jack might know.

In the infirmary, either the Master has been out of bed to lower the lighting, or the TARDIS has taken pity on him. He's sitting on his bed, cross-legged and still, his face less peaceful than fixed in a glower of angry intent. He opens his eyes at the Doctor's approach, and regards the tray he's carrying warily.

"I'm not going to poison you."

"No, you'll just subject me to the worst foodstuffs you can find as some sort of passive-aggressive revenge."

"I've seen you eat scrambled egg on toast," the Doctor tells him, and puts the tray in his lap. "Whatever you want, just tell me. We'll get it. You need to start eating properly."

"Now you're my mother," the Master mutters, putting the tray down on the bed in front of him and opening the coke can. "Marvellous."

"How are you feeling?" There's no polite way to ask someone how crazy they are just now. He doesn't necessarily expect an answer and he doesn't get one. The Master takes a long pull at the sugary drink, nose wrinkling at the taste. Then he starts on a piece of toast, slowly and with his eyes fixed on the middle distance.

Is he sulking about their spat? That wouldn't be like him, he's more likely to relish having rattled someone enough to provoke them that far. That's the sort of power he enjoys, and he did even then—even when they were kids. He was hell on their classmates, and could drive half the instructors to distraction. He was—

"Do you ever stop _wittering_?" The Master tosses down the half-eaten toast and taps a finger against his temple. "On and on. Is this how you problem-solve? Is this how you save the world?" He looks up, and beneath the exasperation, there's a touch of curiosity.

"Yes," the Doctor shrugs. "I'm not getting a thing from you,"

"It's called self-discipline. Have a go."

"You're the expert at this stuff. You've had more practice."

"Hardly." He tries a bit of egg on the end of his fork, then forces himself to swallow it rather than spit it back out. He drops the fork and pushes the tray to the foot of the bed. The Doctor was the same way, right after they left the _Valiant_ —every bite of proper food sticking in his throat, revolting him. Knowing how badly his body needed the nourishment didn't make any difference. And it's not as if he can share his solution with the Master, since it was Jack who loosened that knot of misery and suppressed rage that'd been choking him; kissing Jack until he fell asleep, feeling safe for the first time in a long time.

For a second, he thinks he's gone and shared that memory with the Master, but there's no reaction. He shuts himself down further, just in case.

"You've had more practice in other people's heads than me," the Doctor says, trying to lighten the mood a bit. Respect where it's due, and all that. But the Master takes it the wrong way and scowls at him.

"I told you, I never touched Lucy's little human _mind_. I didn't control her, I didn't bond with her, I _married_ her. Understand?"

"I meant..." Exasperated, the Doctor stops himself just short of bringing up all the other human minds the Master has twisted to suit his plans; how he wasn't so fastidious about a one-sided intrusion. That can't be all there is to his skill. "When you regenerated, the first time. They held you together for days in a telepathic field, you must've learned so—"

"I don't remember any of that."

What?

"You had a knife stuck in you and nearly _died_ , how can you not remember that?"

The Master shrugs, unmoved.

"That I remember, and you screaming the place down when they dragged you out, further convincing my family that you were a lunatic, by the way. I woke up six days later with tits and a massive protein craving. The rest is blank."

"I didn't know."

"You didn't ask."

It's true. He didn't. Didn't ask a lot of things. The running, the moving on; it started early.

She was standing at a window when they let him go in at long last. The white dress they'd given her was immodest without the stiff underpinnings that were meant to give it a regal shape; she'd left those on the bed with the tiny shoes. He could see the shape of her new body where the fabric caught and clung—her hip, her breasts, all soft curves over delicate bones. She looked frail, vulnerable in the wake of her ordeal, but seemed to fill out the space around her when her uncertainty faded at the sight of his relieved smile.

The Master grins, nastily.

"You fancied me."

"I fancied you already." He'd just never been able to see her nipples standing through her clothing as she responded to the sight of him, before; they'd never seen one another in a reproductively compatible light, before. It made things livelier for a while, until they adapted. "Do you remember the other times?"

"That you fancied me?"

The Doctor gives him a look. He's finally getting used to the juxtaposition of urbanity and juvenile insolence that characterises the Master's current regeneration; he no longer takes it as evidence of the other's insanity.

"Regeneration," he clarifies, patiently.

The Master pouts at him like he's being a spoilsport, eyes laughing, but he answers the question.

"Yes. Mostly. Not this time, though." He lifts his hands and looks at them, unsteady and bloodstained. "I took your stupid ship and then..." He grimaces, swallowing hard at memories too recent to be brushed away. "It was bad," he admits, like he hardly dares say it out loud. He swallows, tightly. "Didn't know who I was, where I was. I crash-landed this thing in Hastings and nearly took three aspirin for the headache before I remembered I wasn't human any more."

The Doctor sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"I could have helped." Which brings them full circle to a regeneration gone wrong, still at cross purposes and bleeding sharp annoyance at one another about the past.

"Yeah." The Master traces the outline of the collar beneath his clothing. "I'll bet."

Slow, deep breath. He can still taste his panic from Malcassairo—feel himself screaming orders at his friends because he'd been so scared, so overwhelmed. So sure of who Yana really was, once he gave it a single moment's thought—allowed himself the hope, and the dread. Who else? If he's going to stand and face another Time Lord and answer for Gallifrey, who else would it be?

He goes nearer the bed and looks at the Master; looks into his eyes without knowing what he's looking for.

"My point is," he says, with patience that costs him, "That you need to take the lead with this study, and for that you need your strength. I have power but you have talent. You're better than me at this stuff because you've had more experience."

"I'm better because I don't allow myself to be distracted by what's irrelevant, and because I don't indulge every passing urge and emotion while there's work to be done. I've no more practical experience of a fully functional, two-way connection than you do. Less, if we're counting Captain Torchwood and any other primitives you've—" he twists up his face in disgust, "—dabbled with."

"What?"

"You really want to hear me say it?" Amusement lifts the Master's lips a fraction and sparkles in his eyes, diamond hard. "That you were my first, my only?" He clasps his hands beneath his chin, directs his gaze to heaven and lifts his voice into fluting mockery while he flutters his eyelashes. "Oh, _Doctor!_

"What?"

"As I said, you've never listened to me. Go away."

"What?"

But the Master has no more to say. Maybe he regrets what he's said already, because he's red-faced and glaring down at his drink when the Doctor concedes defeat and goes away.

  

  

Jack's doing lengths in the library swimming pool, utilising a relentless crawl stroke that churns the water. This regeneration, the Doctor doesn't enjoy swimming, but it's a favourite pastime of any humans who happen to be travelling with him. They usually treat the pool as a luxury, but on this occasion Jack is using it as a punching bag. The Doctor perches on the edge of a recliner and waits, watching his progress up and down the pool with interest.

He watched Jack drown, what, seven months ago? It doesn't take a large body of water, not if the other person is stronger or the victim has his hands and feet tied. The Master had him held face-down in a large cleaning bucket until he stopped kicking, and he enjoyed that method because nobody, however stubborn, however rational, is able to stop their body fighting oxygen starvation for very long. You'd think Jack would have a fear of the water, after that, but he doesn't. Just another score that he'd like to settle with the Master, and a crawl stroke that beats the daylights out that particular element. It's like he's getting even.

Jack doesn't know he's there until he hauls himself out of the pool, heavy with well-earned fatigue and breathing hard. He hasn't bothered with trunks, so the Doctor wonders why, when Jack finally notices him, he grabs a towel and ties it at his waist as if he's developed the capacity for self-consciousness, all of a sudden.

"Keeping fit, I see."

"Distraction," Jack says, breathless. He indicates his head. "If I overthink it, it falls apart."

"Yeah." The Doctor pats the wooden slats beside him. "Most things do. Let me see."

Jack sits, resting his forearms on his thighs and bending forward while he recovers from the hard swim. He always reacts to touch—to _his_ touch, anyway—and his breath hitches when the Doctor puts a hand at the back of his neck. He's tense, more than he ought to be after healthy exercise, and the Doctor goes slowly into his mind. No more careless mistakes.

"I slipped up, earlier. I think the TARDIS helped me."

"Sounds like her." The Doctor feels his way around Jack's shield and finds it flawless, if attenuated. "What did she do?"

"Not sure. Sort of... shut me in? Inside the console room, like she shut an invisible door on me until I got it back together."

"Isolation shielding," the Doctor says. "I should've thought of that. You need a place where you can let go. Practice without worrying about a mistake."

"Like the zero room?"

"The opposite. Psychic wavelengths only."

Jack smirks, ducking his head a little further.

"Like a _soundproofed_ room. I like it."

"Is... Is your mind ever more than two steps from the gutter?"

"Nope." Jack straightens, slow enough not to suggest he'd like the Doctor to take his hand away. He's never more than two steps from business, either, and gives him a serious look. "I'm no use to you if I have to hide from him."

"You're doing well." Whisper-light, he caresses Jack's mind with fondness, pride, approval; feels Jack's muscles bunch under his hand, his hair standing on end. His shield doesn't slip, either at the temptation or the disturbance. "See?" Even that much contact turns Jack's eyes soft with affection. No. Call it what it is—give him that much. With love. Human love, borne by a man who's so much more than human, now. Who knows what he's going to be a thousand years from now?

"It's incredible, and I love it. But we have a job to do, here, and we jeopardised that."

"Yeah."

What else can they say? Neither one of them is ready to let this thing between them go. Would that still be true, if the Master wasn't the reason they know they should, or the reason they're together in the first place? Gentle as he can, the Doctor withdraws from his mind. He knows what that loss feels like, better than ever, and he wants to be kind.

"You looked like hell, yesterday. What really happened?"

"Told you. Progress, more or less. He let me try to help."

"And you wound up hearing drums, instead." Grabbing another towel, Jack drapes it around his shoulders, starting to feel the chill as his muscles cool. "Is it safe to mind-meld with a madman?"

Mind-meld? The Doctor blinks, shaking his head slightly.

"Safe, no. Necessary, yes. He's slipping away, Jack. He says it's being shut up here that's done it, but it can't be. He's stronger than that, stronger than you'd ever believe."

He can't read the expression on Jack's face.

"What did you do that made him so angry with you?"

For a second, he thinks Jack means recently—in the infirmary; that he's somehow picked up on that clash of wills they had. But it's not that. He means originally, how did it start. And there isn't a simple answer he can give.

"I found out that he was a murderer," he says, feeling the weight of everything he can't fit in to the sentence. "And I told him it had to stop."

"Or else?"

"Yeah, pretty much." A line in the sand. Please, please, join me on the right side of it. Please. "One of us betrayed the other. Or both. Take your pick."

Jack knows the specific kind of treachery he's capable of, the self-justification he's capable of, and says nothing, but gives him a kiss on the cheek before he goes to get dressed.

The Doctor spends a long while staring at the floor.


	14. Deviation

_"Do you know what you feel like, to him?" The Master lifts his chin with a gloved hand, scrutinising him the way Jack's seen people check out livestock. His only interest here is in Jack's usefulness, Jack's pain, and the progress he's making towards inflicting more misery than Captain Jack Harkness can endure._

_He never replies, unless he can think of something annoyingly glib to say. Today he can't, so he stares past the Master's right ear at the halo of a work light further down the engine room. His silence, his stoicism—the galling fact that Jack's been tortured worse by better than him; all of that pisses the Master off. And the more pissed he gets, the more likely he is to make a mistake the Doctor can use._

_Also, he's talkative during these little sessions. Never gives away much, but you never know. He could let something slip that he doesn't mean to. They have all the time in the world, after all. It's an unequal war of attrition, but for the moment, Jack's holding his own._

_"I'll tell you," the Master continues, just as if Jack had cocked his head in polite enquiry. Lets go of his chin and goes behind him, bespoke shoes tapping on the plate steel deck. "When the Doctor looks at you, he feels sick. Physically ill. He wants to heave with how wrong you are, how you claw at his eyeballs, his mind, his sense of time. Time is perfect, and then there's you, ripping a great, gory rent in the fabric of spacetime, in perfection, just so you can go on existing."_

_He completes a slow circuit of Jack, who's chained hand and foot to the skeleton of the Valiant and on permanent display to the maintenance staff, who tiptoe around him when he's in their way, and never catch his eye. Only the Master interacts with him, though he forces the Jones women to bring his daily ration and shovel it into his face—to bring him a bucket so he can piss. They're not allowed to speak to him, and he doesn't encourage them to break the rules and get punished, but they smile because Jack smiles. For ten seconds together, everything's a little better. They walk away with their heads held that fraction higher, knowing that even if they're reduced to carrying piss, Jack sees them through the shame, and they're amazing to him. Jack can do a lot for somebody with a smile._

_"A Time Lord sees possible futures, Jack. All around him, this... this raw potential in everything and everyone. It's our gift, and our burden." He's so eloquent when he's calm and measured. He talks about being a Time Lord, about power, about pain, and you can't help but listen to his voice. Like the Doctor said; hypnotic. You know you're listening to a fucking sadistic alien madman, but you listen. Jack lets him talk, lets him fill out the corners of things the Doctor only half-says, or can't say at all, and he waits._

_The Master thinks he's rubbing salt in a wound, saying all this. Jack knows that the Doctor had it covered in two succinct, brutal, honest words back on Malcassairo, and that nothing anyone says is ever gonna hurt worse than that._

_Besides, the Master's not taking something into account, and with the Doctor, it's the main thing. The only thing. He cares. The Doctor might be horrified at what Jack's become, and that it happened on his watch, and that it was Rose who made it happen; he might be freaking out because he's out of his depth, so far beyond his comfort zone that, yeah, he probably does wanna heave when he looks too long at Jack. But he fights it, and he cares, and he's sorry. Jack's almost sure the Doctor's sorry for abandoning him._

_"How come you spend so much time with me, if it's that bad?" His words make him cough, and his voice is a dry, painful croak. He hasn't had water in, what, two days? "Don't stay on my account. I won't get all butthurt and bitchy if you start avoiding me. I'm not the clingy type."_

_The Master stops circling him, stands facing him, and slowly extracts that damned laser probe from the inner pocket of his black coat._

_"It stops," he says, coolly, eyes searching out a target. Something he hasn't tried yet. "As soon as you're dead."_

 

 

Twisted in the bed sheet, kicking and shouting at the dark, Jack comes back to himself. He knows inside a few seconds that it's only another dream, that it's over, in the past, but his body doesn't get the message right away. Gripped by panic, sweating and shaking, he throws himself out of bed and backs away until his back comes up against a wall, cool, and he feels the TARDIS and believes he's safe.

Jack lets himself slide down the wall into a crouch, defensive, hugging his bare knees and fighting memories that stay vivid, months later. It never gets any easier—dying. He faces it with more self-control these days, doesn't let the horror paralyse him so bad he can't act, but if people think that makes him numb to it, they're wrong. Even knowing you'll come back to life, your body fights not to die. It struggles for every last breath, every beat of the heart, so death isn't quick unless it takes out the brain instantly. The longer it's dragged out, the more it hurts, the deeper it scars. Cold sweat trickles down his back, and his breaths come shallow, rapid with body-fear.

The Master would drag it out for days, careful not to let him die too easy. He called it 'research'. He treated it like a video game.

He's picking himself up off the floor when the Doctor comes in—soft little rap on the door, more a warning than asking permission. They're a little past that, even if Jack is spending the night alone. He peeks around the door, then opens it wider when he sees Jack out of bed. The shaft of light from the corridor turns the Doctor into a silhouette, faceless until Jack's eyes start to adjust.

"Sorry," Jack mutters, pulling a t-shirt on. "Did you feel that, did I lose control?"

"Heard you shout," the Doctor answers, soothing, but that's even worse than having his terror leak out from his psychic shielding. They aren't so far from the infirmary that the Master won't have heard him, too. "Bad one?"

They're all bad, but Jack makes a sound of agreement, not in the mood for sharing the details.

"He'd love this," he says, guts tight with anger, twisted with dread. "Knowing he got to me. I don't ever want him to see." He indicates his head, the shield he's hanging on to for grim death.

"He's got his own problems." The Doctor comes in. "Come here."

Jack's expecting a hand on his face, cool and businesslike; a mind-touch to check that his shield is holding. The Doctor hugs him instead, reaching around his back, around his neck and squashing him reassuringly close. It almost cracks him, he's holding on so hard to self-control and not expecting anything kind. One unsteady breath is enough to keep the next from being a sob of relief. Jack buries his face against the Doctor's neck, dragging an open-mouthed kiss against his skin in gratitude. The Doctor shudders all over, so Jack does it again, careful this time. Tasting his skin, feeling his close shave, his pulse. He can lose himself in this, every time.

"Carefully," the Doctor murmurs. Takes Jack a few, heavy-breathing seconds to realise what he means, to nod his understanding. The Doctor kisses his mouth, then, and works busy fingers through his hair. All Jack wants is to vanish into that kiss, the taste of the Doctor, but one of them's thinking ahead. He feels the Doctor in his head, wrapping himself right around Jack's mind as a second shield—a psychic prophylactic against temptation. Then they go at it like it's been a month instead of a couple of days since they last got laid, stripping one another naked like it's the old days, with the old Doctor whose need was always on the tipping point between desperate-to-feel and simply desperate.

Jack's on the wrong side of that equation right now, yanking the guy about in his unromantic haste to get his shirt untucked and his pants undone, stripping him and tossing his clothes, like this is payback for the way things used to be. But it isn't. He loves this man, though he knows he shouldn't, and he wants him as much as he needs him. Jack doubts that's ever been true for the Doctor, or ever will be, but he can let go of his reserve for a little while. When Jack remembers himself enough to kiss the Doctor's mouth, to soften things a little, to slow down, he feels it happen—like surrender, not to Jack but to himself. The Doctor kisses him back hard, letting himself succumb to the purely physical. Letting himself enjoy this.

It's been way too long since Jack's fingers encountered a button fly that wasn't his own. It brings him up short when he angles for a zipper that isn't there. He's always missed how slow it is to go button by button down there, teasing with each one; always makes him think of London between the wars and those deliciously repressed soldier-boys who'd let themselves be seduced, all furtive in back rooms and back alleys. All secret, they'd come apart in his hands at the first taste of sensuality they'd ever enjoyed; the first explicit acknowledgement of their desire for another man, answered without shame.

It's not shame that locks the Doctor inside that lonely reserve of his, makes him act out that needless repression and self-denial, but Jack loves drawing him out in the same way—drawing out his need and answering it with his body, his acceptance.

Tonight, it's Jack's need, the Doctor answering it, hungry for kisses but hesitating when he understands that Jack doesn't need gentle; he needs the old Doctor back, caution to the wind, fucking him hard against a wall. He used to beg Jack to punish him for being alive—never in words, never explicit, but the need bled from his blue eyes and ached in his response to being pinned, taken, driven to the edge of hurting just so's he could _feel_ again. Just so he could forget for a while.

"Hard," Jack whispers, snatching a breath between kisses. "Please. Like we used to."

He feels the little mental recoil, the physical hesitation. It's not reluctance, refusal; Jack trusts him to say so if the answer is 'no'. Doesn't he remember how it used to feel? How _he_ used to feel? Is it like some old filing system for memories, lifetime after lifetime all neatly packed away in storage so it takes a moment to retrieve them?

 _'Yeah',_ Jack thinks, watching his face in the half light. _'That.'_ The Doctor remembers the facts, could probably replicate any one of their previous sessions blow by physical blow from memory, but the emotion, the motivation, the energy—that younger Doctor's visceral need for sensation on-demand, sex reduced to blinding, primary colours—he has to reach deeper for that. To know himself. Jack waits.

The Doctor cups Jack's face between his hands, as if he's not sure he has Jack's full attention right now.

"You sure?"

"Yeah." So much for spontaneity, for mindless, but Jack's touched by the concern, and by the acknowledgement that they've both changed too much to assume. "Please," Jack whispers, groping for the lube, slapping it into the Doctor's palm, a sop for his conscience. "Make me feel it. Get him outta my head, just for a little while."

Some private irony makes the Doctor smile a bit at that, but he nods, kissing Jack again, pushing in search of resistance and claiming ground when Jack offers none. He backs Jack against the wall and traps him there—has figured out enough that, when Jack tries a little experimental twist of his torso, he meets Time Lord strength and gets held in place with one hand, getting kissed the way the Doctor likes it. _'God, yes.'_ He thinks of the old Doctor, lean under that leather jacket and made of sinew, made of stubborn. He loved those blue eyes, the lack of calculation in him as consent was sought, received. All in silence.

"You can't read my mind right now, can you?" he asks, out of breath and hot in the face. 

"No." A push, a weight against his shield. He can recognise it as the Doctor, as non-threatening, but that's all. "Let's keep it that way."

"Yeah." It has to be rude to fantasise about someone's previous regeneration while you kiss them. Hard not to remember, though, as he starts to lose himself to the building anticipation for what they used to do.

Perfunctory isn't the Doctor's style these days. And he does have a style, if you could ever get him to admit that. He likes it when they take their time, when they touch a lot; likes to get close with Jack while they still have clothing between them to modulate the temperature difference. He's a great kisser, losing himself in the sweet ebb and flow, but never passive—a busy mouth, easily bored, prone to wandering off to find other body parts to taste if Jack's not giving the kiss his undivided attention.

Right now, their cocks together in his hand, he has all of Jack's attention—everything that he isn't throwing into his psychic shield, at least. He trusts the Doctor to catch him if he slips in the heat of the moment, trusts that impersonal hold on his mind not to falter and expose him to the Master.

"Please," Jack whispers. "Please."

"Turn around." It's not an order, but Jack uses it like one. He turns to face the wall, placing his hands at chest-level. He isn't sure what to expect, which is an even better distraction than the one he had in mind. "Keep very still." Again, not an order. Almost a question, soft-voiced and direct. Take it or leave it. Jack nods, taking a breath to ready himself, but he doesn't get the Doctor's cock. He gets one finger—dry, sudden, pulling every nerve ending in his body around to pay grovelling homage to his prostate. What the Doctor lacks in practical experience he makes up for in strict, anatomical precision, leaving Jack seeing stars and curling his bare toes against the floor from one damned _finger_.

 _Shit_ , he's good at this when he wants to be.

"Give yourself a hand, there, Captain."

Jack practically salutes, he's so grateful for the unexpected—for being taken right out of himself by this crazy alien who loves him from a couple of comfort zones away. He needs this, so bad. He grips his cock and doesn't hurry, even though he thought he wanted to. The longer it lasts, the longer he forgets. Why did they never think of that, before? Why'd they throw themselves into it like there wasn't time, inside a time machine?

Hand on his back, that wonderful finger just barely moving inside him, the Doctor is alert to every signal Jack's body is sending—a participant waiting his turn, not a spectator. The more aroused Jack makes himself, the more the Doctor answers it, crooking and twisting and finding out nerve-endings that the brute-force approach could never hit. Jack's in heaven, or at least his ass is, and he relaxes into the pace the Doctor's set. No hurry. No need to go at this like they used to, though that was hot and so real. Sometimes he still wakes up in sticky sheets, dreaming about that other Doctor inside him or under him; that hard body shaking with pent-up need. They hurried then because the Doctor couldn't bear to need it that bad, or because they didn't want Rose walking in on them. They didn't want to have to explain, probably because neither of them could.

Just when Jack's sure he has this under control, touching himself slowly, everywhere, and riding the sweet edge of arousal, the Doctor leans in and kisses him between the shoulders, right where his hand's been resting. Just a peck, a breath against his skin, injecting closeness into what's been mechanical and remote. Jack gasps and lets go of his cock, slapping the hand against the wall before it finishes him.

 _Now_ the Doctor fucks him like he asked—now that he's ready to enjoy it instead of gritting his teeth and taking it like a dose of bad medicine just because he needs it. He still needs it. He still grits his teeth, and bites back a cry of relief when the Doctor penetrates him, hard like he asked but slick with lube and careful to pick his moment. New men. Both of them. New men. Jack shuts his eyes and lets it happen, relaxing when the Doctor gets into it, grasping his hips and giving him what he needs. Fast, insistent, steady. So real.

"Oh, that's good," Jack murmurs. It's all good. The brisk thrusts that live just on the edge of hurting; the pace of something relentless, beyond his control; the sounds they make, skin slapping against skin and breath jolted out of their chests as little exclamations of effort or appreciation. He feels safe, anchored, and his body is on fire with how good that feels. "Yeah... Oh, yeah..."

He brings up his left arm in front of him, against the wall, and rests his forehead on it—just feeling it, feeling what he asked for, the Doctor driving the nightmare right out of his head, doing him this favour, with a resolute kind of noblesse oblige coupled with a flawless understanding of human anatomy. He keeps Jack on the edge, stays in perfect control of himself. He could probably keep going like this until Jack begged for mercy, and that thought makes him laugh weakly against his sweaty arm, biting down on his own flesh as pleasure becomes exquisite. All consuming.

Jack normally needs a hand, a mouth—some firm touch to finish him off, but this is enough, and all too much, and the Doctor keeps on gamely fucking him until he's spent himself up the wall and stopped shouting about it. Only then does he let himself go and take what he wants—less rough and ready, more sweet and slow, stroking and stroking until he shudders against Jack's back and gasps into his hair, satisfied and swallowing whatever noise he'd like to make about it, so that all Jack hears is his breathy struggle, then his long, long sigh of relief when he's finished.

 _'God',_ Jack thinks, swallowing hard. His arms are shaking, his legs, and the Doctor's plastered to his back, all melty. _'We need to do this more often.'_

The Doctor ruffles his hair teasingly as they peel themselves apart—lets go of his mind as he lets Jack pull him close and kiss him deeply, but he's already getting fidgety. Already on to the next thing in his head. It's like losing him, like missing him while he's standing right there. Jack knows better than to try and hold on to him.

Without warning, the Doctor lets him go and becomes a whirlwind in the room, collecting up his clothes and chattering away.

"I'd better get back to the controls." Socks, underwear. Boxers, for the record; soft black ones that emphasise how slim he is across the hips. "I'm trying to get her to build a new zero room, and that isolation room we talked about. So far, it's an isolation _deck_ , completely inaccessible. Ever since we had a bit of a thing last Christmas she's been funny about the architecture." Trousers, fingers nimble up that button fly, leaving the belt loose so he'll be able to tuck in his shirt better. "She's got hung up on spiral staircases. And toilets, for some reason." T-shirt, then shirt, twisting for comfort as he tucks. "One of these days I'll probably open a door and find a spiral toilet." Jacket. Tie.

Jack's standing strategically between him and his shoes.

Eye contact.

"Lights," Jack says. The TARDIS obliges, turning the half-light into daylight. When it comes to taking care of her pilot, the TARDIS is always on his side. The Doctor looks flustered, like he never saw Jack naked and properly fucked before. He can't decide where to look. Jack keeps looking right at him. "You okay?"

"Of course I am." The Doctor looks a little surprised. A little guilty, like he suspects he's being rude but can't actually bring himself to care that much. "Are you going to come and help, or just stand there?"

Jack shrugs. Aliens. It can get a little odd, sometimes. If the Doctor's not trying to get away from him, everything's probably fine.

"Be there in a minute." He heads for the shower and lets the Doctor get his shoes back.

 

 

_He gets clean once a month, or when the Master can't stand the stink of him any longer. Whichever comes first. Jack gets five minutes in the industrial decontamination shower off the engineering deck. It's the only time he's not being watched._

_Five minutes of privacy, once a month? That's worse than none. He spends the whole time knowing that it's nearly over, with all the dread, all the humiliation and rage that he'd started to get numb to out there coming right back to life. After the first few showers, Jack knows that's exactly the reason. This tiny respite, this five minutes with soap and warm water and the freedom to move--it's the reset button on the Master's game with him. Restore that little bit of dignity, comfort, sense of self, but only so he can start smashing it down all over again._

_Jack knows cruelty. He's endured things he doubts even the Master is capable of dreaming up, and done a few himself. He's tough, but he never figures out how to deal with the showers. He never stops dreading the special little smile the Master saves for a presentable prisoner; the anticipation in it, like the bastard sees a clean canvas in front of him and gets so fired up with fresh inspiration that he can hardly decide what mark he's going to make first._

 

 

There's a mug of sweet tea waiting for him on the console. The Doctor has a panel open and his arm so deep inside the guts of the console that his cheek is against the controls.

"I think... she's upset... that I keep losing them." He makes the satisfied sort of sound that someone makes when they just got hold of something nearly out of reach.

Jack backs his brain up, trying to pick up the part of this conversation he must've missed. Draws a blank.

"Losing what?"

"Zero rooms."

"Ah." Jack collects the tea and takes a seat. This could take a while. "Have you asked her nicely for a new one?"

"Yes!"

"Are you really okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Maybe she's upset because you let the Master out after she made you that nice, safe room to keep him in."

"He's still a Time Lord," the Doctor says, a warning voice. He straightens up suddenly, some blue, glowing component in his hand that Jack's never seen before. He's never seen anything like it, and catches it with a frantic grab when the Doctor tosses it at him. "One you were trying to forget about, I seem to recall. Hold that."

Jack is actually capable of helping with repairs and maintenance, but he knows the score. Unless something's on fire or about to explode, the Doctor just wants somebody to talk at while he works. He complains about his beloved TARDIS in the same, gentle grumble that people use about their husbands and wives after sixty years of contented monogamy. Jack would give anything to hear her side of it.

He looks at what he's holding—an illuminated blue globe the size of a golf ball. Power relay? Memory crystal? It's slightly warm in his hand.

"The thing is, on Gallifrey..." The Doctor stops, making a face as he gropes deeper into the open panel, sticking out one leg to keep his balance. "Like I told you, we didn't get up to that sort of thing."

Mouth full of tea, Jack lets that one sink in. Nods to himself. Yep, he's talking about the sex, now. What, is he about to confess to some ingrained, cultural guilt about enjoying a good fuck sometimes?

"What a waste." Sometimes, people just expect it of him. Jack leans back and waits some more.

"It's not prudery, well, not much. It's the telepathy. We learn self-control from the cradle, because we have to. We can feel all that, and deeply. Love, passion, lust, desire. All of it. But we have to keep it separate. Can you understand that?"

"I think so."

There's a long silence. Jack starts to think that's all he's going to get, starts trying to fit it together with what just happened between them, like a flat-pack with some pieces missing, the instructions in a language he can't translate.

"If two Time Lords ever let their minds merge fully in the heat of the moment, it'd be forever. They'd change each other for keeps. You just touched it, Jack—just a glimpse of what that's like. Can you imagine being able to have all of it, as much of a lover as you wanted, more, and stopping yourself? Trusting yourself not to take things too far? Trusting the other person not to?"

"I guess not." He straightens up in the seat, looking down at the blue glow in his hand.

"Once... A very long time ago... I trusted him that much."

_'Oh.'_

Jack doesn't react. Not outwardly. Hardly inwardly. It's not as if he didn't already know. The Doctor and the Master throw sparks off each other like the other kind of couple—the kind who burned out in a blaze of glory and hate each other for it. If the Doctor's willing to tell him in so many words, he's grateful for that. Even if the thought of it, of anyone loving the Master and trusting him with it, makes him feel sick to his stomach.

"You and he... changed each other for keeps," he says, not sure if that's a euphemism for something Time Lord, or just a patronising over-simplification of what went on.

At last, the Doctor drags his arm out of the console and stands up straight. He's gripping his sonic screwdriver tightly.

"No, that's the point, we didn't. We trusted each other _not_ to, but now..." Suddenly, the Doctor looks like he doesn't know why the hell he's saying any of this, let alone to Jack. He looks angry, disconcerted, resentful—trapped, like he needs to be somewhere else and has no place to go. "Something's connecting us, me and him, ever since we linked our minds. Ever since I've been hearing the drums. And I can't, Jack. With you, until I understand what's going on, I can't. No more risks."

Jack just looks at him. He hadn't been sure where the conversation was going, but he wasn't ready when it got there. He thinks he ought to be offended, or hurt, or maybe worried for the Doctor's sake, but he's too busy trying to catch up with the rollercoaster.

Brow furrowed, the Doctor turns back and pushes the panel closed. A couple of new lights come alive on the panel and he buffs them with the sleeve of his jacket. It's a hopeless little gesture. A fake normality.

"Wait, you forgot your..." Jack stands up and holds out the blue globe. The Doctor looks at it, bleakly.

"It's a Jenjairi gaming ball. Rose dropped it. We never found where it got to." A muscle moves in his cheek, like he's trying to smile at the memory, but nothing happens. He just looks like he's losing her all over again, just by saying her name. "It sings to the winner."

He trudges down the steps like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Jack, still shaking off the sweet afterglow and tasting the Doctor in his mouth, feels like a jerk, and doesn't even know why.

 

 

_Lucy Saxon is a beautiful woman, once you look past that hard smirk and see the whole of her. She was picture-perfect on Harold Saxon's arm, on the web sites and the front pages, on the BBC coverage of the election victory. Then, she wore a neat chignon and a glow of self-satisfied pride. Now, the Master has her in sultry evening gowns that cling and hardly cover her up—in slingback heels that no biped could safely walk in. She's ornamental, another canvas, and his marks are all over her. Jack's shocked by the change since he last saw her._

_"Look, darling. I brought us a toy." The Master, casual in shirtsleeves and designer socks, steers Lucy across the plush, cream carpet to where Jack is sitting, handcuffed to the tubular frame of an office chair. He'd been contemplating a bid for the upper hand, until Lucy came in. His feet aren't restrained, he's been fed today. No healing wounds. Might never get a better chance, and even if it means he dislocates something in the process, adds a few torsion fractures to his list of current problems, there's a reasonable chance he could knock the Master's brains out with this chair, if he moved fast enough._

_Not with Lucy there. For one thing, she'd take the Master's side. Jack's almost sure she would, even when the Master makes his wife sit across Jack's thighs, side-saddle, and give him a view of her breasts under the gown. He doesn't look away fast enough. They're taped to her skin, her breasts; perky lift without a bra. Jack guesses that there's only a thin layer of silk dress between her buttocks and his clothing, too. Her breath catches when the Master makes her wiggle her ass on Jack's thighs._

_He wants the Master dead. He whispers to Lucy that he's sorry, not because he's done anything to hurt her; because it's his body the Master is using to hurt her. And he's treating it like he's giving her a present, a Captain Jack Harkness sized gift._

_"Would you like to kill him, sweetheart? It's not even wrong, he comes straight back again. It's like Playstation."_

_"I don't like him, Harry," Lucy tries. She pouts, going for 'playful'. Hitting 'bad acting' instead. Desperate. Frightened. "Can't we send him back downstairs?"_

_For the first time, for a second, Jack wonders if she could be turned—if he needs to seize this moment and reach her somehow, an ally who can move about the ship and reach the Doctor._

_It's all about the Doctor. Everything the Master's doing, everything Jack is enduring, whatever Martha is doing down there in the devastation of the Earth. Every hope humanity has left._

_Jack holds that thought when the Master plucks Lucy out of his lap, hooks her with his arm so she has no choice but to stand and watch, up close. He slides his left hand lazily over her body while he takes aim with his right, the laser probe he calls a screwdriver set to a narrow, cutting beam of pain. Lucy's face is a mask of incomprehension, but her eyes betray a hot, predatory fascination with her husband's insistent cruelty. If there was a chance of reaching her, the chance is gone now._

_He holds the thought until the world goes black. Holds on to hope, the way he has from the start._

_'Doctor.'_

_He wakes up in chains, down in engineering somewhere around dawn, and it starts all over again. He loses track of how often it starts all over again._

_Jack endures._


	15. Approximate Solution

It's subtle enough to go unnoticed if he doesn't look for it, this connection to the Doctor's mind. It's all but inert, nothing but a conduit for whatever they choose to feed into it. Silence, now. The Master forces himself to terms with it, turns his back on it, and sleeps like the dead.

He wakes to find his arm attached to a drip. Examines his system for any drugs. Finds none. Closes his eyes and tries to remember how a Time Lord goes about healing himself. What he's supposed to do if he finds he hasn't enough strength left to begin the process.

_'Oh, yeah. Regenerate.'_

The Doctor visits him in silence, poring over the diagnostic machines and changing the bag of fluids when he sees the readings. Glucose switched for saline. The Master watches him, unable to look away. Saving people who aren't sure how to live—that's what he does, isn't it?

"You need to start eating," the Doctor says, not looking at him. Not sparing him an ounce of that compassion he had so much of, before. "We can use a feeding tube if you really can't."

'We can' meaning 'I will'. He isn't allowed to fade away, to solve the Doctor's problem by dying on him. That would deny him the self-imposed martyrdom of this restricted life as jailer and keeper, wouldn't it? The Master should be used to their stalemate, by now, but this one irks him. Gets to him, a niggle under the skin. Judging by how twitchy and miserable he looks, it's doing exactly the same to the Doctor.

"Broth," the Master says. He doesn't want to die. Not of starvation, slowly expiring while he's conscious of his body's failure. It'll take forever if the Doctor keeps him on fluids—and he will.

He's never felt anything like it—this lassitude, this weakness he doesn't know how to resist. For a moment he'll fight, blaze, attack, then fizzle back to this. Limp, uninterested; too daunted by his obstacles and enemies to do a damned thing about any of them. Is he catching it from the Doctor, some disease of the mind or character flaw, share-and-share-alike for the drums?

The Doctor can hear it. The Doctor can't _not_ hear it. That's wonderful. That's...

He sleeps for a while. Wakes to a mouth-watering, savoury smell. The Doctor is standing over him with a tray, a travel mug with a sipper top, and a huge glass jug of steaming, golden liquid.

He's got the Doctor taking orders. Slaving over a hot stove, too? He's had fantasies that run along those lines, in times gone by, and can't help smiling at the picture in his head. Not this Doctor—the blond one with the worried blue eyes, maybe. Slave to his every whim, some subtle yet noticeable token of ownership marking his person. A collar, perhaps. On his knees. The Master grins.

"Can you manage?" The Doctor raises the head of the bed rather than touch him, holding out the stainless-steel cup.

"Oh, fuck off," the Master mutters, taking it in shaking hands.

The warm broth tastes like chicken, a little bit salty, rich with amino acids. It's good, goes down easily, one slow sip at a time, while the Doctor hovers with the jug, as if he's likely to down a pint of the stuff in one sitting. _'Idiot'_

"I heard that," the Doctor says, wearily. He puts the tray aside, visits the diagnostic readings, then comes back and hovers.

Silence broken, grudgingly, they both relax slightly. Allow a moment's eye-contact that reveals them both to be sheepish, uncertain.

"Can you still...?" The Master moves his fingers against the cool outer wall of the mug, a practiced ripple, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. The Doctor nods, expressionless. The Master smirks. Can't help it. It's too delicious. "Don't suppose you fancy joining me in a cosmic reign of terror, then?"

The Doctor almost smiles, somehow fighting it down for a stern,

"No."

"No." Another sip. The stuff really is rather good.

"Why, though?"

"Hmm?"

"Why does it have to be a reign of terror?" Cautious, the Doctor half leans, half perches beside him, one foot on the floor. "If it's power you want, you could be a brilliant ruler. Prime minister, king, god-emperor. Whatever you want. You could change whole galaxies for the better. Why do it by force, in bloodshed, when you could have it for real? Real power, secure and honest? You'd be _revered_ for sharing a fraction of your gifts."

He really is an idiot.

"Because it's more _fun_."

He used to know the meaning of the word, didn't he? The Doctor used to do things for fun that turned their tutors prematurely white. He was _legendary_ for his dangerous non-conformity, his tangential imagination, and an infectiously unapologetic laugh. When did he go and become such a pretentious old fart?

The Doctor nods, keeping his expression blank. Not a trace of his reaction leaks along the mind link, nor betrays itself in his body, but his voice...

"Earth was fun, was it?" Just quietly. Almost conversational. "You rampaging about with no more purpose or vision than one of their own petty dictators? That was 'fun'?"

"I had a purpose," he snaps, resentment flaring, fuelled by something in the Doctor that he can't put a name to. That stillness that's so wrong on him. That measured recitation of the facts as he sees them. A calm he can't possibly feel. Can't. He just can't, after the _Valiant_. He just _can't_. It must be a lie.

"Oh, yes." The Doctor rubs his chin, nodding slowly as he stares into the middle distance. "Breed with Mrs Saxon, and forge a new Time Lord empire out of the ashes of humanity. Turn the last living TARDIS into a perversion to sustain your paradox. And me, crawling at your feet, a fellow Time Lord for a toy. Your pet. Was that fun?"

The Master controls his expression with an effort. It was fun, wasn't it? His adversary humbled, helpless? All that youth and strength taken away, unrecognisable except for those big brown eyes, moist with sorrow and... No. That's what he thought. Sorrow, pain—the start of the Doctor breaking, of a despair that he could rebuild into something glorious. But it wasn't that. He knows the Doctor's current face better now, and everything looks clearer with hindsight. That was _pity_.

He spews the meagre meal back into his lap, the cup falling from his hand and thudding against the floor as his body convulses, rebels. The Doctor holds his head, dispassionate, giving him the privacy of looking away from the wreck of him until he's finished retching.

"I really am dying," he mumbles, too dizzy to focus, let alone fight, while the Doctor cleans him up—strips his clothes, wipes him down, mops his face like he's a little child. All without ever meeting his eyes, without touching his mind. It's almost as if he isn't there, less of a presence than a robot medic, and that's his pity too. The Master hates him.

"You're not dying. Not according to these." Finished pulling a sheet over him, the Doctor nods to the screens. "You're exhausted, you're depleted. Your artron levels are nonsensical, but they're not elevated enough to harm you in, what's it been, a couple of years?"

He tastes salt. Tests his top lip with the tip of his tongue. Tears, not sweat. He's crying, so silently he didn't even know. Shoulders shaking from a pain he's grown numb to and can't define.

A couple of years, Earth solar. Fun? Yeah, he had fun. Most of it before election day, before he conquered the humans and turned their planet into a radioactive sweatshop. Before the _Valiant_. Up until the Doctor came with his band of human followers, he had fun. Lucy was fun, and Archangel was fun. Hiding in plain sight was fun. Watching the Doctor run about saving everyone, utterly unaware of the future he was running towards. Fun.

"Master?"

He focuses. The Doctor's leaning over him, worried. Quite literally mopping his brow, then pressing the soft cloth against his cheeks to take away the tears. How long has it been since the Doctor stripped him, cleaned him, covered him?

Not again. Not this, again. He gets hold of the Doctor's wrist and squeezes with the strength of the dying.

"Not again. Make it stop!"

"Calm down," the Doctor urges. "Slow your hearts. Slow breaths. Come on, stay with me."

He forces his head to turn so he can see the monitors; forces his mind to wring some sense out of the readings, assess his condition. His pulses are fight-or-flight, animal, flooding his body with the poisons of primal terror. He's a Time Lord, not a bloody _animal_ , but fighting it only makes it worse. He doesn't want to be strapped to the bed again, humiliated and helpless again. He doesn't want to be entirely at the Doctor's mercy again, because he's starting to doubt the other man has any left. That he's only pretending, and could stop.

"Not again. Not again."

"No, not again." Soft-spoken, reaching for his mind, the Doctor lays all their animosity aside for this. For helping. You'd think it was some trick, some excuse to pat himself on the back and wallow in the self-congratulation, but he can't lie like that in a direct mind-link. It's easier to lie to yourself than do that, and his true feelings are there beneath his intent. He burns, like Gallifrey, he burns, and only the smallest sliver of that fire is anything to do with the Master, with their recent past. The Master tries to push into the fire, to start pulling it apart, to know more, but the Doctor resists, calmly pushing him back into the realm of the functional, where the mind link is a lifeline. "Hold on to me. I won't let you go."

It's not like before. The Doctor doesn't offer him the bare bones of Time Lord mental discipline to cling to, to shape himself with. He offers himself, instead—a simple welcome, a truce. Shares his breathing, his slow, conscious control over autonomic functions; shares his heartbeats, the way he's holding down his own alarm at what he's witnessing, feeling. All the Master needs to do is go with him, flow with him, and even though it feels like a surrender, he has no choice. He can't breathe, he can't think—can barely hold himself above the level of the beasts, but the Doctor can. The Doctor can hold them both above it. The Master holds on, crushing the wrist he still has captive until he feels pain lap at the walls of the Doctor's control. It's nothing, a small pain. The Doctor's had far worse, and shares that too; shares how he holds one pain in perspective thanks to another, and another, a four-dimensional puzzle of relative suffering, and there's been _so much pain_. Suffering the Master has only dreamed of inflicting on him. This pain is nothing, and if a fractured wrist is the price of keeping someone from plunging into an abyss, the Doctor will pay it without hesitation.

As they synchronise their bodies, the attack eases. The terror, the close-up view of that grasping abyss. Satisfied that it's working, that the Master is cooperating, the Doctor closes his eyes and gives it all his concentration, turning his attention to body chemistry, to suppressing and cancelling out the biochemical messengers of a primal scream. He does that like he's done it so often that he doesn't need to think about how it's done. Like it's routine, for him.

_'Noted.'_

Slow. In and out, breaths like the washing of a gentle tide on a shallow beach. A sweet undertow of endorphins, bringing a gentle euphoria that makes it easy to ebb and flow.

The Doctor sits there like a statue to their training, to sober mastery of himself, while the Master melts into the pillow and drifts, exhaustion feeling sweet for once. No need for a sedative after that; the Doctor is _good_ at this regulatory chemical warfare, and has gently beaten blind panic into submission. It's almost pleasurable.

The Master manages to open his eyes long enough to see if he's broken the Doctor's wrist. His hand, the one he thought was still crushing the other man's bones, is limp against the sheets—feels alien, not part of him at all. He stares at it, baffled, then up at the Doctor's face. Sensing his attention-shift, the Doctor opens his eyes.

"Don't strap me down." Suddenly, that seems the most important thing in the world. "Don't."

"No need for that. Stay focused." The Doctor takes his hand, the one that was so recently trying to break his bones, and grips it lightly. "We're beating this. Hold on."

Are they? He tries to reach deeper into the Doctor's mind, searching for understanding. Again, the Doctor blocks him, maintaining the telepathic link at the superficial level; a corporeal focus. He's right. The Master hates to admit it, but he's right. Controlling his body is limiting the attack, the whatever it is; allowing the Doctor to guide and support him leaves him the strength and clarity to actually fight and win.

"What _is_ this?" The words are a hiss, impotent rage. The Doctor places his right hand on the Master's forehead—stops him trying to sit up. "What's _happening_ to me?"

"Don't question it now," the Doctor warns, quickly. Shows him a single, clear image of the last time he tried; blood pouring from his nose, doubled over in white-hot agony. "We'll find out when you're stronger. Not now. Don't risk triggering it now."

"Who could do that?" His voice is just a mumble, feeble, but the Doctor can follow his meaning, his surface thoughts—the direction of his emotions. "To a _Time Lord_ , who could even—"

"I know, I know." More firmly, he pushes the Master back towards control of his autonomic functions, back towards mirroring the Doctor's own steady pulses. "Don't get distracted."

That's the Doctor. _He's_ the one who gets distracted, going after whimsical ideas like he's chasing a butterfly with a net. When did he learn so much control, so much stillness?

The Doctor's lips move. It isn't a proper smile. It's a grimace, a muscular wrench. A mask. Behind it, the abyss.

"You were gone a long time."

The Master considers. Nods. He can't envision the universe without himself in it. But, logically, he accepts that there was a time. A long time, between his somewhat ignoble demise and the day the Time Lords decided they needed him back. He stiffens at the memory; hears the Doctor suck a sharp breath at the remembered pain. He'd screamed his throat raw before Rassilon was done with him, rebuilding him from the stolen fragments of his last moment in time.

"No!" Run! All he can do is run. "No!"

The Doctor holds him down, hard. Hand on his head, hand gripping his hand; leans in with his body weight and holds him still while the memory triggers his limbs to fight against nothing. He'd been restrained, of course; strapped to a bio-bed, paralysed with drugs. Conscious. Always conscious. Only screaming on the inside, at first. Later, once the body had some semblance of life in it and was allowed movement, sensation, just screaming.

The Doctor is appalled. Sickened. And surprised. What did he think had happened? What did he think a forbidden resurrection looked like?

"I didn't—" The Doctor is fighting the distraction, trying to force both their bodies back to a state of healing calm, but his expression is blank with shock, while anger bubbles up inside him.

_'Did you sanction it?'_

_'What?'_

_'My resurrection. Did you argue for, or against?'_

_'I wasn't consulted. I wasn't even told.'_ The Doctor shudders, the shudder passing through him and into the Master, whose skin crawls in sympathy. He isn't lying. The Master can glimpse the echo of the _fait accompli_ ; see the day he found out, and the Doctor's grim resignation to what their people had become. That was another mask, papering over the cracks of despair, anger. A bitterness that he was incapable of, before the War. You can see how he became a monster, inch by slippery inch—one step further every time he lost a little bit of hope.

The Doctor tries to pull away from that thought, but the Master holds his mind. Holds it with something of his old strength, so that all the Doctor manages is to drag his hand free, the other one sliding down the Master's cheek to rest, limp, on his naked collarbone.

"Master... don't..."

_'Got him.'_

"You used the Moment. Didn't you?"

Numb, truly shocked that he'd use _this_ to lever an advantage, the Doctor just stares at him, slack-jawed. Betrayed. And, though he's blazing with an inner triumph, with the pure satisfaction of being _right_ , the Master finds he has no urge to press the advantage, to go in for the metaphorical kill and condemn the Doctor, now, when he's vulnerable—hearts on his sleeves, exposed in the act of healing.

"Yes," the Doctor whispers, choking on it. On disgust at them both.

"Good." Yes, good. He could only have done it better if he'd stopped off on his way to that date with destiny, and personally slit Lord President Rassilon's fucking throat. "Very good, Doctor. I'm finally proud of you."

The sound the Doctor makes is pure misery. Not a sob, not a moan, not a groan—some twisted hybrid of all those; despair given its own voice. And he doesn't run. He closes himself off, mind and body, turning inward, but he doesn't run away. Sits there shaking, horrified, enraged. Ashamed. Everything he refused to yield aboard the _Valiant_ , all at once, offered up and gift-wrapped in that vision of perfect, crimson pain.

It is beautiful on him, as all raw emotions look beautiful on him, but the victory feels hollow. The victory he's wanted for so long. It's just hollow, and the Master wants to vomit again at what victory feels like and how cheaply he won it; he's horrified that he's the one whose face is running with tears, while the Doctor sits there, screaming inside, and doesn't even run.

When he moves his hand to touch the Doctor's, on the mattress beside him, he doesn't even pull it away.

"Why are you doing this? Why would you even help me?" He's almost accusing, as much as he's asking, because it's stupid, _stupid_ of him to sit there, to care, after everything. Hundreds of years of everything he could throw, and the Doctor turns the other cheek and bloody _helps him_. "Why?!"

The Doctor turns his hand over. Closes his fingers around the Master's—carefully, at first, as if he's liable to break. Then hard, anchoring himself with that pain of his, and forcing himself to meet the Master's eyes.

"Because I can." He trembles. Shudders again, jaw quivering with emotion, as if it needed underlining that the reply isn't flippant, facetious, but painful truth. The only reason he thinks he needs. "Sleep now?" He's almost begging. Almost. The Master nods. Or he intends to. Maybe just thinks it, but the Doctor gets the message. Hand against his forehead, gentle as a kiss, the Doctor pushes him into the merciful darkness.

 

 

 

For a second, he thinks he hasn't slept at all—just closed his eyes a moment and lost time. Then he notices details; a day's stubble darkening the Doctor's face and neck. Lived-in looking clothes. The blank expression of a man who's just about bored enough to start scrawling on the walls. He stayed. Could've sent Torchwood to watch him, could've left him to wake up alone, but didn't.

"How long?"

"Sixteen hours and a bit." The Doctor throws in the uninformative 'bit' just to be irritating, the Master thinks, but the attempt at being funny is currently wasted on him. It could be sixteen hours going on a thousand years, for all he knows. His time sense is frozen, flailing for a point of reference and finding nothing. "Do you remember what happened?"

He remembers crumbling into the Doctor's unwanted pity—needing his assistance to ride out the attack. He remembers being mopped, bathed and cossetted like an infant. He remembers that, in some way he's unable to exactly define, they fought one another to a standstill again, but the Doctor's kindness won.

All the Master can do to gain back some ground is to refuse to answer the question, but the hot, scarlet flare across his cheekbones is probably a dead giveaway.

"I know," the Doctor says, quietly. "You hate this. Be fair, though." He leans a bit closer and speaks confidentially. "I've seen you look a _lot_ worse."

In spite of himself, the Master splutters with laughter. The Doctor doesn't even smile at his own wisecrack, but he relaxes slightly; stands up, stretching his arms and neck, before drawing one of the screens into easy view.

"These artron levels are consistent with your last—" The Doctor hesitates, looking for a term that's both diplomatic and accurate. "Uh, episode."

"Two 'episodes' doesn't make a pattern. Just a great big, idiotic guess."

"Yeah, well." The Doctor rubs his eyes with his knuckles. He's beyond exasperation. Beyond much of anything but a decent night's sleep, if the Master is any judge. "I'm really good at those."

That's true. He is. The Master pulls the thin sheet up to his chin.

"It never happened before you locked me up." There were bad days, worse days, but never like this. Never losing himself so completely as this. "I managed just fine."

The Doctor gives him a sceptical look.

"How? What helped? Those days you locked yourself away in your suite, what were you doing to keep it in check?" He pours some broth from a thermos into the plastic cup that goes with it, examines the contents, frowns, then applies his sonic screwdriver, agitating the molecules to heat it up.

With an effort, the Master tears his gaze from the proceedings and concentrates on the question. There was nothing a big enough dose of carefully chosen narcotics wouldn't let him ride out, behind closed doors, distracting himself with Lucy. With ear-splitting Earth music. With anything that seemed like a good idea at the time, anything that felt good, some of which he prefers not to think about in any detail now. But he remembers—that's the point. He wasn't losing great dollops of personal time, of consciousness. He coped without another Time Lord to prop him up—without even letting the Doctor pick up on what was happening. He was never this close to the edge before the Doctor locked him up.

"It's different now."

He can see that the Doctor would like to argue the point, but he doesn't. He hands over the cup, instead, and hovers until he's sure the Master's own hands are steady enough to get it to his lips.

"All right, so it's a new pattern. The artron accumulation, the 'episode', the artron depletion. But how is that related to the sound in your head?"

"Our heads," the Master says, smiling cheerfully between comfortable sips of broth. The Doctor ignores him.

"We need to see what this looks like when you're back on your feet. Drink up."

"It's going to take more than chicken soup. Fresh air and sunshine are too much to ask for, I suppose?"

"If you want." Wary, the Doctor studies his eyes for clues. For once, his motive is transparent and the Master lets him look—opens his mind so the Doctor can look at an honest longing for a pleasant sky, a peaceful view. "We can go wherever you want, if you'd just..."

"Stop being me?" Stalemate, and both sick to death of it. "I need a shower, and a shave, and a few hours in a dimension that doesn't contain your undying boy-toy. Is that allowed? If I promise not to murder the whelks, or whatever other fauna tops the local food chain?"

You can almost see the moment the Doctor's goodwill snaps, under no particular strain. Just a last straw, the tone of voice maybe—perfectly timed, when he's tired and downhearted and sick of trying to be kind. He doesn't say anything—doesn't even do anything except nod once and leave. It just _feels_ like he's banging his head against a brick wall and screaming.

The Master smiles, a glimmer of satisfaction, and drags himself out of bed for that shower.

 

 

 

It's Harkness who brings him a shaving kit, along with a tray of assorted foods and beverages. His expression is the one you'd expect a lower life-form to wear while juggling a psychic shield and the possibility of impending attack—stiff, hostile and unflattering. He looks constipated. The Master, cross-legged on his bed, almost bursts out laughing.

"You can unclench your buttocks, Torchwood. I couldn't manage a psychic attack on a bug at the minute." The shower, the pathetic, slow shuffle to the facilities and back while grabbing every available handhold, has taken the last of his strength, for now. But he's clean, and clothed again in comfortable black, and from that improved position he feels almost like being benign towards the freak.

Harkness puts everything down in front of him, watching with hard eyes while he opens the cheap pleather shaving kit and extracts the battery-operated shaver he was given in his cell.

"What the hell did you say to him?"

"Is he sulking?"

"I asked you a question."

"I don't care."

The Master feels his chin, the extent of the unkempt growth of hair there. He could do with a mirror, but the Doctor doesn't seem to keep them around.

Harkness comes a step closer to the bed and looms, blocking out the nearest light source. The Master ignores this, even when the human leans down to make sure he's heard.

"We're about to land on an inhabited world," he says. The Master feels his pulses quicken—surprise, pleasure. More relief than he cares to own. "I don't know if the Doctor plans to walk you on a leash, turn you over to the authorities there, or actually trust you to interact with decent people, but I know this." Harkness leans closer still. To the Master's shock, he adds a tendril of thought to emphasise his words—to underline his certainty. "If you harm anyone, in any way, however indirect or cunning you think you're being, I'll do the same or worse to you. If I have to kill you to stop you, I will, and then I'll answer to him for it, because I owe him that." The thought-tendril departs, revealing that it was fully under the man's control. Impressive. An absurd provocation, under the circumstances, but it's impressive that he can even manage it. "Think good and hard about what I owe _you_ right now. 'Master'." His voice drips hatred, scorn. His mental defences reveal absolutely nothing. Impressive. Truly. It's time to reassess Captain Jack.

"He wouldn't approve of threats. And me a sick man."

"That's fine. I don't approve of him letting you out of that cell, let alone this ship. You don't get another warning."

Harkness goes away, taking his cloud of naked hostility with him. The Master would enjoy unravelling it, some time—starting again on the long, messy process of taking Captain Jack to pieces. Physical suffering didn't work, but now the Doctor's gone and levered his mind open, there are other options.

Imagine taking full control of _that_ specimen. Send him back to Earth, maybe. Back to Cardiff and his team of misfits under the bay. What a long, long game an immortal could play, and how subtly he could play it. Better than a time traveller, without the need of a risky paradox or any disjointed, periodic intervention.

The Master has seen, as Harold Saxon, what a properly deployed smile can do to a herd of humans. Imagine what he could accomplish using Captain Jack's.

It's a thought. Something for the back burner. When he's back on his feet.


	16. Field Observations

It's nowhere—one of those places made just for passing through, with the entire economy catering to tourists and people in transit. A hub for the local star systems—a single, great city-state on a planet otherwise left mostly to nature.

The Doctor parks well away from the city, but not completely away from civilisation. There's a handful of sensitively-built wooden cabins, with sloping moss roofs and cosy verandas, facing a serene view over green plains. They're ready to rent at the touch of a credit chip to the door scanner. Psychic paper works just as well. Behind him, the Master sniggers.

"You _rebel_."

"Shut up. Room with a view. All yours." He stands aside and watches the Master go in.

Does he need to spell out the rules? Sometimes they understand one another, unspoken, but technically, the Master's only promised not to kill any whelks. It's not what you'd call a binding agreement to avoid conquering this world and enslaving its population.

"Nice," is the verdict from inside.

The cabin smells of timber and resin, every inner wall clad in vertical panels of pale, reddish wood. It's not rustic, though—there's every mod con, with all the supplies for a comfortable and relaxing stay. The Doctor steps inside and finds the Master holding a bottle of city-state branded sparkling wine in one hand, and species-adjusting barrier contraceptive devices in the other. He's grinning suggestively, which isn't a pleasant sight on that gaunt and pale face, with those mocking eyes. "You booked the honeymoon suite."

"I think they're just thorough." He wanders through the first room, which is dominated by a large, low bed, and has a look at the utilities panel in the passage behind. He's wary of letting the Master anywhere near technology, but nothing here is capable of long-range communication. Power readings are minimal, in keeping with the low-impact building. They can probably each think of half a dozen ways to blow the food replicator or heating system up to leave a crater, or improvise a transmitter from the entertainment system that's powerful enough to have some impact, somewhere, but he thinks the Master won't. Not this time. He really is... well... too ill. The walk from the TARDIS to the cabin forced him to lean on the Doctor's arm for support.

That won't sit comfortably in the Doctor's mind, no matter how often he reminds himself, or how often he sees the Master struggle. Whatever else he's been—whatever unflattering terms and condemnations the Doctor might think of—the Master has always been irrepressible, a power-house of brilliance and energy. It's _hard_ seeing him reach for a handhold when he crosses a room, let alone witnessing the episodes that leave him so weakened. It's hard to remember who he is. This current face never feels familiar, so he's always having to remind himself: _'This is the Master.'_

Jack is barely speaking to him, though the Doctor thinks that's because he's worried what might come out of his mouth if he tries.

Now, Jack's watching them from the TARDIS doors, making his own survey of the location without setting foot outside the console room. He nods, satisfied, detail of the terrain fixed in his mind; gives the Doctor a wave that stops just short of being sarcastic, and closes the door. He'll be glued to that scanner, the Doctor thinks. He'll be watching. If the Master tries anything stupid, Jack will try to kill him.

"Halle- _bloody_ -lujah!" the Master crows, registering the absence of the anomaly that is Jack Harkness. It's what he asked for; a few hours in a dimension that doesn't contain Captain Jack. "It's just like killing him but without the mess! Can we lock him inside?"

The Doctor doesn't answer. A few hours. That's all he'll tolerate, and all he'll ask Jack to respect. The Master is exaggerating his discomfort around Jack—he has to be, now they have Jack's emerging psychic ability under his conscious control. But the Doctor can't forget that he, himself, ran from Jack rather than face up to the sensation of having him nearby, rather than learn to live with it. He just ran.

The cabins are on a high promontory that overlooks forest and grasslands. If you squint through the haze that masks the horizon, you can just about make out the thin, reflective line of the ocean. It’s beautiful. The Doctor breathes it in, appreciating the sense of space. For a traveller, he doesn't do half enough actual sightseeing. It ought to be harmless enough, didn't it? A bit of sightseeing?

He looks over his shoulder at the sound of wood dragging on wood. The Master has moved one of the recliner seats across the decking to catch a patch of sunlight. He sits, turns up his sleeves to the elbow, and gives a convincing impression of relaxation. The Doctor gets that feeling again—the feeling that he's looking at a stranger, a new intruder in his life instead of his oldest friend and adversary. His closest friend, once upon a time, and more. He wishes, now, that they'd been more. While they had the chance, and the luxury of being young and stupid. It's not like things could've turned out any worse.

The Master isn't dying. The Doctor can see why he fears it, when the crisis bites and he has barely any control over his own body, his own mind. That self-possession is what a Time Lord is made of, by the time the Academy turns them out. That sense of one's place in the universe, in time; a creature raised above the physical, the mundane. To be limited by one's body, and to feel that hard-earned elevation crumbling...

Compassion softens the anger that's been sitting beneath his ribcage since the Master asked for this break from the TARDIS. The Doctor grabs the emotion with both hands and tries to keep it alive. The Master, for his part, is determined to make it hard work.

"Are you going to peel me a grape, or something?"

He isn't dying. Really, he isn't—the Doctor's absolutely sure. He's just spent half a day combing through every scan, every medical reading, every blood result, while the Master slept off the most recent attack. That's exactly the right word for it: 'Attack.' It's something they can defend against, stronger when they stand together.

"The food replicator is the best in the galaxy," he calls, pushing his hands into his coat pockets.

"I'm too weak."

The Doctor can hear the laughter in his voice. It isn't particularly unkind. They used to laugh together. They used to love to laugh together.

All right, he isn't dying, but he has been neglecting his body. If he wants to eat now and be difficult about it, then so be it. The Doctor trudges into the cabin and replicates a bunch of plump, black grapes; carries them on their mock-porcelain platter to the veranda, where the Master grins at him.

"Comfy?" The seat reclines, raising the occupant's legs on a curving slope. It does look comfy, and the Master does look too weak to get up again without a struggle. He holds out the plate. "I'm not peeling anything. The skin's the good bit." He takes and eats one.

"Yes, mother. Thank you, mother." The Master takes the plate and rests it in his lap; takes one grape and pops it into his mouth. He bites down, but doesn't chew. "Are you gonna watch me do everything?" he asks, indistinct around his snack. Insolent. "I don't conquer planets at random, you know. What would I want with this one?"

The Doctor chose it for more or less that reason. He still needs to worry about the innocent people who could, theoretically, cross the Master's path. Back when they still knew each other, the Master wouldn't have dreamed of indulging himself in casual violence. When he hurt someone, killed someone, it was with an end in view—because they were in his way, or because harming them served a purpose. To anyone else, he made a point of being courteous, even charming. Not that he was, on any moral level, above eviscerating someone on a whim—he just would've found it tasteless, and aesthetically displeasing.

He's just shared that thought, he realises, seeing the Master grin again. It takes some getting used to, having another mind around—one that can catch his every thought if he isn't applying himself to proper Time Lord discipline. Being alone inside his head became normal. After a while, after he met Rose, he even stopped noticing it every second of every day—the silence, the psychic void where the awareness of his species belonged. So, he lowered his guard, got lazy. Got sloppy. The Master never would.

"I love watching you think about me." Insolent again, but also the truth. The Doctor looks at him, half a dozen emotions trying to dictate his response. He denies them all and holds his tongue.

He sits on the edge of the other recliner, adjusting his coat as he does so. The Master watches, no less given to studying him, thinking about him; watching and questioning everything. Does he see a stranger, sitting here?

Thought is more familiar. When they touch minds, that's familiar. It comes easily, almost in spite of them both—the unobtrusive awareness of one another that they shared for much of their early lives. Alongside that, dormant, is the connection left over from their aborted attempt at a full link. Not so dormant is the sound of drums in the Doctor's head. It's distant, bearable. But it's constant, and it's getting on his nerves.

"Can we have a truce?" The Doctor leans forward over his knees, clasping his hands. Staring at them. "Until you're better?"

"Why?"

"Because the other way isn't working."

"Sick of me already?" The Master crosses his legs at the ankles. He's wearing black satin slippers with that loose-fitting black outfit he's found, so all the Doctor can see of his skin is face and hands. He'll always picture this face, this body, wearing the white shirt and black tie of Harold Saxon; twenty-first century Earth, an icon, self-made. Murderous, vicious and bloodthirsty.

Sick of him? No. Sick of _them?_ Oh, from the moment he knew the truth on Malcassairo.

"Don't you get sick of fighting?" It's an appeal to reason. The Master is still capable of that, although you'd have doubted it, watching him on Earth and aboard the _Valiant._ He also has a whiplash temper, which snaps now.

"I'm your prisoner." The Master sweeps the plate of fruit out of his lap, onto the grass beneath the deck. He sits up, gripping the wooden arms to support himself. White-knuckled with the effort. "You have me in a bloody restraint collar, locked inside your ship with the _freak_ for a guard dog. Do you really think I'm going to cosy up with you and accept the status quo? Why would I? Why _should_ I?"

 _'Because it doesn't have to be like this,_ the Doctor thinks, rubbing his forehead with thumb and forefinger. _'Because we both need to stop, just stop, and one of us has to go first. Because I can't do this forever.'_

"Fine," he says, standing. "I asked Jack to wait inside for twelve hours. Make the most of it, because I'm not asking him again." He walks away, back to the edge of the promontory and the soothing, green view. Behind him, the Master makes mocking 'kiss-kiss' noises until he's out of earshot.

 

 

Jack doesn't wait a minute longer than the twelve hours. The Doctor feels it, of course—the moment the TARDIS door seal is released, making Jack tangible in this dimension again. The Master's right. It does feel the same as when Jack comes back from death. It's still a shock. His body still tries to cringe away from the unacceptable reality. Then he takes a deep breath, and thinks about Jack. Blue eyes, big hugs, fierce and absolute loyalty. And more, now. Kisses that say what neither of them will. Generosity with his body and his trust, and patience with an alien who barely knows how to accommodate him, let alone fulfil him.

The Doctor's sitting on a large rock, cross-legged. He moves over to make room when Jack tries to sit down beside him. Jack takes him by the hand and says nothing. Their last words were too heated, too harsh, and they're both sorry. The Doctor's so glad he's here.

"He's sleeping," he says, not sure how else to break the silence. It'd be so easy to touch Jack's mind, let him understand, but he can't. They can't. That's a Pandora's box he should never have opened, and a temptation he's not confident of resisting. "Thanks for doing that."

"I didn't do it for him."

"I know." The Doctor squeezes his fingers. Jack has big hands, reassuring hands. He likes that, but can't pinpoint when, exactly, he started picking out parts of his friends to like in some special way. He used to give Rose a funny look when she went on about a nice bum. "Thank you."

"Is it better for you, when I'm not around?"

"No." Kneejerk answer—the kind Jack hates. But it's not a lie, exactly. More a way to divert the conversation along more comfortable lines. "It's different. But it's like you dying. Cut off, gone. The hard bit—for him, for me—is when you come back. That moment. I can't tell you what that feels like."

"Likewise," Jack answers, coolly. But he doesn't let go of the Doctor's hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah." A snort of humourless laughter. "And, yeah, it feels 'wrong'."

He's so sorry he said that. More, now he knows the Master heard it, and Martha. He owed Jack the truth, all of it. Still does. But he owed him more respect than that. Those two words. 'You're wrong.' A Time Lord said that, and it was like he never left the Citadel behind; never took off the robes, the collar. Never broadened his horizons or ate humble pie out here in the real universe. It was like he'd never kissed Jack and dragged his trousers down and let the pain have him, have them both, trusting him with that abject, mindless need. But what do you say? What does 'sorry' mean, in this context? Yes, he's sorry, and he's ashamed, but what use is that to Jack? No time traveller can live in a world of might-have-beens and not lose his mind, because they could. Either one of them could go back there, to the Gamestation, and tell the Doctor not to run, or let him run but tell Jack why. He shifts his thumb to catch at the leather of the wrist strap, Jack's vortex manipulator. Two men with time machines, and neither of them have seriously thought of going back. They could, and with a TARDIS the Doctor might even get away with it. But they won't.

"I like knowing you're alive. This last year..."

He can't go on. A sick feeling of dread has begun to replace the impotent rage he carried with him from the _Valiant,_ and it's no easier to live with. There are things he wants to say, probably things he needs to say—to someone, anyone—but he can't. And part of that, part he's not even remotely proud of, is that it would be letting the Master win to say it.

This is how they keep ending up in bed; the need in that silence. Jack's need too, now, and the Doctor doesn't forget that Jack's in pain. What's harder to remember is before, the first time Jack travelled with him, when the pain was mainly his own and Jack reached out and embraced it like it was the most natural thing in the world. He remembers—of course he does. The when, the how. Everything, picture-perfect in his memory. It's just that the Doctor, as he was then, feels dead to him, like some crumbling husk he left behind when he regenerated, and never missed. Not once. He never looked back, even when Rose asked him to change back.

Jack misses him—misses the unglamorous, uncomfortable way they coupled, how they exorcised their demons together. How they trusted, how their silence was easy. And the Doctor has no idea what he's supposed to do about that. None. He'd walk away, decide that this human oddity of misunderstanding isn't his problem, except that when he looks at the Master, he understands. Just for a second or two, he's standing in Jack's shoes—all his feelings about the Master, good and bad, all their shared history intact, yet he's seeing a stranger and he can't comprehend. Unable to accept the now. Missing what was. Resenting someone for not being who they used to be. Needing them to change back.

 _'Blimey.'_ The Doctor blows out his cheeks, cutting off that train of thought before it hits the landslide 'round the bend and derails, leaving no survivors.

Jack lifts their joined hands and kisses his knuckles. Forgiveness. Apology. Both. He's good at olive branches.

"She finished the isolation chamber. And the zero room."

"Good."

"Will it help him?"

"It'll help me find out what's going on."

"Sure he's not just playing us?"

"I'm sure." He shudders, he's so sure.

Good enough. Jack relaxes, moving to put an arm around him, but stopping halfway when he finds the solid knot of tension at the back of the Doctor's neck. Without a word, he starts to rub there, squeezing through three layers of collar and getting to work on that knot. The Doctor closes his eyes, half wincing, half appreciative. Warm, human hands are perfect at this sort of thing.

"You need a break." Jack's hand goes still, but he leaves it there, sharing his warmth.

A break? He needs... The Doctor stares blankly across the darkening expanse. He needs not to be stuck here, not to have done the things he's done or made promises he isn't sure he can keep. He needs to lie down with Jack and let that fresh, brilliant, human perspective wash over him again—to see the beauty Jack sees everywhere, and in him. He needs the Master to get well. He needs the Master to... To stop. Just... stop. He needs that truce, and knows that's exactly the reason why he won't get one.

"Yeah." A break. Fat chance. Elbows on his knees, he puts his face in his hands. He can rest like that, under normal conditions—refresh his mind and body with a few short minutes of concentration. Not any more, not since the Lazarus process. He's starting to think he's lost the ability for good, or for this regeneration at least. There's damage, he knows that, but it's too hard to quantify. Plus, he doesn't want to know. "I can't leave him."

"You know how that sounds?" Jack starts up rubbing him again. The Doctor drops his hands, stays bent over so that Jack can do more magical things to his spine.

"I can pull him back from those attacks. I don't think they're random, but I can't see the pattern yet, either. He's weaker each time. Maybe too weak to regenerate. He thinks he's dying."

"Is he?"

"Not yet, but he can't go on like this."

"I'm sorry." Jack really sounds it. "When it looked like one of your people had survived, I thought it was great. You deserved a miracle."

"You believe in those?" Doesn't sound like Jack.

"Sometimes. I've seen what people are capable of. The best and the worst. Sometimes in the same person on the same day. I've seen people make miracles happen."

"You've become a philosopher, Jack," the Doctor smiles, straightening up to look at him. Jack grins.

"I've been a lot of things."

How does he even manage to make _that_ sound suggestive? Can he help it, is it involuntary, or does he have to try? Jack must see the question, or sense it, because his face falls. Back to the serious expression he's worn ever since they left the _Valiant._ That unblinking sincerity of his, backed up with a depth of worry that doesn't suit him half as well as the easy flirtation.

"Jack—"

"I'd never," Jack says, holding his gaze, "Push this further than you want it to go."

"I know."

"I don't think you do."

His first reaction is irritation—pure, simple and unfriendly. Before it escapes as a remark he'll regret, he stands up and puts some distance between them. He walks to the very edge of the promontory and looks down into blackness, hands buried deep in his coat pockets. Jack's right, which does nothing to help the irritation, or this feeling that he's being attacked with weapons he doesn't understand. Not that he doesn't know how to defend himself. Run away, that's how. Dodge, weave, avoid, misconstrue, defuse, deny. He did it all to Martha, and it's only with Jack patiently reaching across this... this human void... to guide him that he can see why it was the wrong thing to do. Avoiding a confrontation isn't his usual way of doing things, but he can't stand this feeling. Couldn't stand it even with Rose, so that in the end—at the end, when they were out of time—she had to drag it out of him. Like saying you love someone is something shameful, something beneath him. Or saying that you don't. He can see, now. That's all he had to do for Martha. Just tell her that, simply and gently, as a friend, the way Jack talks to him when he's missing the point.

He hasn't missed this one, and he doesn't complain when Jack comes up behind him and reaches around him, drawing him a few steps back from the sheer drop and then just holding him in the loose circle of his arms.

"I don't know what I want." The Doctor looks up at the stars and knows that's a lie, only a part of the truth. He doesn't know what he wants from Jack, or from any human ever again, for that matter. "Is that okay? Can that work?" He hears his own defeat. Most people only want to hear a comforting lie, when you get right down to it. _'It'll be all right.' 'Yes, I can save all of you.' 'I love you.'_ Not Jack. Give Jack the truths that hurt and terrify. He soaks up the pain and stands ready for more. The Doctor can see himself in that mirror.

"Back home." Jack moves a bit closer against his back, holding him a bit tighter. "There's this..." Soft, self-deprecating laughter, ruffling his hair. "I was gonna say, 'boy'. The whole planet is full of kids, and even with a grown man, part of me feels like I'm robbing the cradle."

The Doctor squirms. Jack holds tighter. "Ianto. He is... beautiful. And messed up, and so smitten with me that I'm scared even to smile at him in case I get in too deep. I want what he offers when he looks at me, Doctor. Not just a quick one over his desk, either. I know that look, and he would give me the rest of his life. If I had the guts to take it, share it, and watch him get old, and..."

Jack's voice breaks. Silence. Slow breaths, a check on his shield before he lets himself worry about how he's feeling. "I've lived too many lives. Said too many goodbyes. Every graveside, it's always 'never again.' I know." A kiss on the back of his head. "You're hating every moment of this conversation. Hear me out. I'm telling you that I get it. That it's okay if the only reason you're into this is because I don't taste of my own death."

He'd thought Jack hadn't been in any state to hear that. What could he do with the information except misconstrue it? The Master thinks Jack is his plaything. Jack thinks... what? That he'd share a glimpse of his mind for no better reason than convenience, availability? Does he think that's all it was, before—that the man he was then, the Doctor he was then, grabbed the first available warm body for some recreation, and it happened to be Jack's?

Humans are so... so...

He remembers Jack's description of his team, and frowns.

"Ianto Jones? The sexy Welshman with the half-converted cyber girlfriend he dragged from Torchwood Tower and hid from you inside your own secret base?"

"That's him."

"Blimey."

"Yeah." Jack gives him a comfortable squeeze. He isn't afraid of 'complicated'.

You start protecting your hearts. That's the thing. You don't stop loving any more than you stop breathing, but you keep the losses at a distance. It's the only way, when humans are ephemeral and you're... not.

How many gravesides? He can picture Jack standing there, ubiquitous military-surplus blue amid a sea of black; face pale, bleak with sadness. And he wouldn't run from that. Not Jack. He'd stand and face the pain, all that loss—the certainty that for every love he lives to the full, there'll be another loss. For a Time Lord, the pain lasts a very long time. For Jack, it could last forever. Literally, _forever_. Jack might stand beside _his_ grave, one day, and think of him as ephemeral—a brief, brilliant brightness in the darkness of eternity, just the way the Doctor finds himself thinking of all his human companions.

 

_'Have a drink, Doctor,' the Brigadier chides, pressing a brandy glass into his hand, eyes twinkling behind a well-lived human lifetime of wrinkles, 'And buck up.'_

 

"Get some sleep," Jack says, firmly. "I'll watch our lord and master."

 

 

The aroma of a full English breakfast lures him back to wakefulness, sometime after local dawn. Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast, Assam tea, orange juice... The Doctor uncurls himself from the couch and follows his nose, which leads him outside, onto the covered veranda.

He stops, unnerved by the suspicion that he's still asleep, dreaming, because Jack and the Master are sharing the modest two-seater wooden table—having breakfast together as if they do it every day. He only relaxes when he notices that Jack has the strap he's made for the collar control in his left hand, resting on his thigh, leaving him free to operate it while using a fork in his right. And that the Master is absolutely seething, beneath a calm, outward demeanour.

"Morning," the Doctor tries, not entirely sure it's a good idea to break the spell. The Master ignores him, sawing a mushroom carefully in half, then into quarters. Jack winks and smiles.

"I told him I'd go back inside the TARDIS and shut the door if he ate that."

"That's cruel and unusual punishment, isn't it?" Still, he can see that the Master has managed nearly a whole slice of toast, half a fried egg, and most of the orange juice. It's more than any persuasion or coaxing of his has accomplished. He thinks better of asking what Jack suggested would happen if the Master failed to eat.

"At least the tea is drinkable," the Master says, frostily. He looks—sounds—stronger. The Doctor found him face-down on the only bed last night, an empty hypospray still in his hand. They need to look at that—find out whether it's the sleep or the sedative itself that's making him rally the next day. "The company leaves a lot to be desired."

Jack's plate is empty. He tosses back the last of his juice and stands, gathering up his crockery.

"All yours." When he comes back out of the cabin, he slides a fresh meal tray in front of the Doctor, then presses the collar control firmly into his hand and heads for the TARDIS.

The Master's temper doesn't hold out for one second after the doors seal Jack inside. He shoves away plate, table and all, sloshing juice all over the Doctor's tray and causing his own chair to scrape back so he can stand.

"That insolent, arrogant _freak!"_

"Sit down," the Doctor says, quietly. "He didn't have to do that."

"Treat me like a child?!"

"Treat you like your comfort interests him in the least." The Master drops back into his chair, folding his arms and glaring. The Doctor tries to imagine how Jack worked his way through that plate of food and scraped it clean, sitting opposite the man who gave him his newest nightmares. "You do remember what you did to him, I take it?"

The Master gives him a filthy look.

"That's your 'forgiveness' talking, is it?"

 _'Oh, no,'_ the Doctor thinks, not caring if the Master hears him, _'Don't you dare.'_ He's clutching the collar control in his right hand. Not a good moment for threats, or warnings.

He takes a deep breath and says, "That's not mine to forgive."

The Master looks away. It looks like more petulance, but he's upset—a borderline state of distress that he doesn't prevent from creeping along their psychic link, as if asking a question. The Doctor tries a mouthful of superb bacon, swallows with an effort, then lays aside his fork. Jack's got a stronger stomach than him, apparently.

"If we don't forgive each other, what's left for either of us?"

"Just like that." Sarcastic, the Master spreads his hands, a letting-go gesture. Poof! Gone. "No revenge, no reckoning. Just your bleeding-heart forgiveness?"

"I tried 'an eye for an eye'," he says, watching his fingers crumble a toast crust over the barely-touched plate. "Me. Recently, in fact." He stiffens, remembering that righteous rage. How it burned, drove him. How he could taste it for months, afterwards. How Martha looked at him. "It didn't change anything. Didn't undo the harm that'd been done. Didn't even make me feel better."

"Then you were doing it wrong."

"Yes." The Doctor laughs. Knows how brittle it sounds, what he's giving away. "That's me. Doing it all wrong." Nothing he's done since he lost Rose has made him feel the slightest bit better. Everything he touches seems to make it all worse.

"What did you do, then? Key someone's car?" The snide question dismisses him as a force for malice. The same man who asked him, just yesterday, to confess the means by which he committed genocide. "Ring their doorbell and run away? Take their lunch money?"

The Doctor reaches across the table, offering his hand. Offering to show him, wordless. Daring him. Smothering his satisfaction when the Master visibly hesitates before gripping his hand. The Doctor shows him—the Family of Blood, the punishment of immortality that he meted out to each of them. No mercy. No second chance. They wanted eternal life, so he gave it to them.

The Master doesn't recoil. Doesn't so much as twitch.

"Is that supposed to scare me?" The Master lets go, fingers curling to catch at his skin as he draws his hand away. Lingering in contact with his thoughts, skin to skin. "I know what you are, Doctor. You have 'hypocrite' written through you like a stick of rock." He folds his arms, somehow managing to lounge, quite elegantly, on a small, straight-backed chair. "Or is that meant to impress me? They presumed to hunt a _Time Lord._ They had it coming."

"Now who's not listening?" the Doctor mutters. He pours tea, needing busy hands. "Revenge is a waste of time and energy. Poetic justice sounds nice, but it's pointless. Harming you in any way would be pointless. A waste of my energy. Waste of resources. Understand?"

Surely he can get his head around that? Reduce it to a cost-benefit equation, and it must make sense, even to him.

"Then let me go." The Master says it calmly, idly almost, but then his fist comes down hard beside his plate, bouncing the cutlery, and he's livid again. "Who are you to hold _me_ back?"

The Doctor starts adding sugar lumps to his teacup. One. Two.

"Your friend. I think." Three. Four. He loves the way they break the surface tension of the liquid with that little 'plop'. "Can't you fight one battle at a time?" Five. Six is too many, sweet tooth or not. He eats it instead. "Get your strength back. Get to the bottom of this." He touches his head, meaning the drums, while the sweetness floods his mouth and lifts his mood a notch. "Use the resources to hand. You're good at that." He's fed up—hears his chipper voice turn sour with resentment as he goes on talking.

"A truce." The Master sits for a while, contemplating his definition of the word—his appeal to heartless pragmatism and cold necessity. It doesn't sit comfortably with him. His mind, ruthlessly contained inside his formidable walls of self-discipline, feels like one big scowl—like thunder clouds at a distance. "For how long?"

"I hadn't thought about that." The Doctor blows out his cheeks, thinking it through now. He wants to be fair, reasonable, but he doesn't trust his own judgement. He isn't sure he'd notice if he was being cruel, or vengeful, or recklessly stupid. "Until we track down the source of your problem?"

"That could take forever!"

"With the two of us working together? I doubt it."

It's a fair point, and it's not as if they don't have time on their side. The Master subsides again. Thinks again. Then, bargaining,

"Get rid of Harkness."

"No. Try treating him like a sentient lifeform."

"No!"

Yeah. They're going to need their own, highly specialised definition of the word 'truce'.

 

 

Later, they sit cross-legged on the sun-warmed grass and gingerly explore the connection between them. They isolate it, examine it. Make contact through it. Attempt to close it down, or block it. Nothing doing.

They eye one another, half wary, half intrigued. They grip hands and try again, reaching deeper through skin-contact.

 _'Be careful,'_ the Doctor warns, but he's dealing with the same temptation to go deeper than they need to. He can't not want this, even if all they do, once they've achieved communion, is hurt one another. He hasn't felt so alive in years. _'I don't want another headache like the last one.'_

There's no need to go very deep in order to see what they're dealing with. They guide each other in mapping its shape, its texture and its scope, then they follow the pathway into each other's heads and finish up standing in that hall of marble again. The stronger should take the lead, set the scene, but the Master is much better at this—in his element, albeit unsteady on his feet. Besides, the Doctor has the feeling that if he tries it, they'll end up standing on the bridge of the _Valiant._ And that won't help. How to start, then?

"What do you make of it?"

Even here, the Master looks stronger than before. Black on black clothing makes a stark impression against the pale background, and if his psychic grip is a bit wobbly, his gaze is steady as he asks,

"Did you ever bond with your mate?"

"What?" The question is so offensively personal, so intrusive, that his jaw drops. Even a friend, a best friend, a _lover_ , has no right to ask.

"Don't get precious," the Master says, peevishly. "They're all dead, what does it matter now?"

"It was a genetic match. You know that." He was there, and she was there; no less a presence in his married life than before. He _knows_ the answer!

"That's not an answer."

"No, I didn't!" If it was a step he hesitated to take in passion, in love, it was one he refused to take for the sake of duty. "You know perfectly well that I didn't!" As if she would have consented, even if he'd been willing. The genetic lottery handed his wife a mate considered eccentric by his friends and a raving lunatic by just about everyone else. They made perfect children together, ran their household together, and left it at that. "You're not suggesting that this—" unthinking, he pushes his anger outwards and dumps it into the ether, just like he did the last time, with his terror, "—is us bonding?"

The walls come alive, or rather the air does. A blueish dome forms around them, a lattice of electric light crackling with psychic energy. Another, fainter line connects him to the Master, chest to chest. It fades as quickly as his flash of anger, and they look at one another, eyebrows raised. The Master answers his question, speaking slowly. Distracted.

"No. There's no intimacy involved, no particular awareness of each other. But the permanence of the link. The stability..."

As one, they approach the perimeter of the short-lived light-show, and reach out a hand. Glance at one another, feeling nothing, seeing nothing. Baffled. The Doctor frowns, and thinks about the sense of familiarity that eluded him when he analysed the problem before. He reaches out again, fingertip touching the air where the dome glowed, and pushes his mild alarm towards it. Blue lines crackle outward from his fingertip, making the dome partly visible again. He looks down and there, again, is the faint line of the same energy, connecting him to the Master.

They both pass a hand through it before it fades from view. That doesn't interrupt it, and there's nothing to feel.

"This is almost..."

"Familiar?"

"Yeah."

It's lost on neither of them that the phenomenon lessens the sound of the drums; that if they keep on poking it, they might reduce the distant sound to nothing. Or make things worse.

"Last time," he says, exploring the idea as he goes. "When you showed me the drums, when I reacted on instinct, that's what I did. Took all that emotion, the fear, the pain, and pushed it away. Like a shield."

"It didn't do that," the Master points out, nodding to where the lattice had appeared.

"We weren't using a visual point of reference at the time." He indicates the marble hall, the doors that ring it—the construct built for the purposes of better communication. Ideas can live, here, and people—most people—need images to help them navigate both the conscious and subconscious mind. "But we felt the same effect."

The sense of familiarity finally gives birth to an idea.

He reaches out into thin air, coaxing the marble-room metaphor to be more responsive to his own subconscious—to become a space where his ideas can take solid form, and his emotions have mass and momentum. The Master allows it—loosens his grip on the construct so that the Doctor can shape it at will. For a handful of heartbeats, that silver-blue lattice shimmers in a dome all around them, a few feet in width, and he recognises it. Sort of. Maybe."I think it's Archangel. We never disconnected, either of us." The Master gives him a look. "It... felt the way this looks?" Words can't keep up with thought, with the birthing of an idea. He waves his hand again, puzzlement giving way to pleasure at the beauty of the thing. "I didn't make this. I just grabbed hold and hung on for dear life. Look." He feeds it his surprise, and the vision solidifies. The drums quieten.

"That's absurd." The Master's reluctant appreciation gets thrust away into the construct, and the lines become solid. The one that joins them at the chest pulses with energy. "Archangel was... was fifteen hastily Earth-built satellites and a bio-conduit in my _wrist watch_. I used the telepathic circuitry from your TARDIS to build it. It was just a transmitter for my will."

"No." The Doctor can't part with his pleasure, his wonder at the beauty of it, even to feed their creation. "Archangel was you, as well. 'Vote Saxon, trust me, watch the birdie, ignore the slightly dodgy man behind the curtain'. That was you. You built this, and sent it all across the Earth using the satellite network. And I tapped in without you even noticing. Made it completely part of me, so humanity could push back, through me."

"It was unidirectional," the Master says, irritably. "Until you ruined it."

"It really wasn't, not with the human race on the other end. Just be glad you were wrong." _'As usual'_ , the Doctor adds, but manages to keep it to himself. "I don't think we have time to build anything like this from scratch before you're past caring, and I wouldn't even know where to start." He makes another pass at the air with his right hand, tickling the ghost of Archangel into visibility. He can't help smiling. "Look at this. Everything you do could be this beautiful, this amazing. You're brilliant, you really are. You're even brilliant by accident while you're being as stupid as it gets."

"Oh, stop it." The Master walks a few paces away from him, edgy as he begins to see that the Doctor is right. This _is_ what's left of his own creation. "You're like a kid in a sweet shop."

"Yeah," the Doctor agrees, working his mind into the lattice with ease now that he can see it for what it is. Fits like a glove, since he spent so much time adapting his brainwaves to it. As for the Master, it's already part of him, grown out of him—the organic architecture of his latest failed project, a fossilised bit of pure genius that he didn't give another thought to after his plans fell through. "I am."

Humiliation leaks into the room, hot and hateful, while the Master stands with his back to him, breathing hard. The Doctor catches the emotion, breathes it, then lets it go and join the wall of themselves that's beginning to cancel out the drums almost completely. 

"Archangel helped you to keep this thing at bay." He reaches out when the Master sways on his feet, but gets his hand knocked aside. "Even if you only did it subconsciously, or by accident, you built yourself a partial shield."

"And you came along and smashed it. Cheers." The Master, still with his back to the Doctor, makes a single-digit gesture that varies in meaning depending on where you are in the universe. The Doctor gets the message, anyway, and shakes his head, turning away. He doesn't have to watch the Master confront the humiliation of recognising his own wilful ignorance; an opportunity squandered.

The Doctor almost apologises, but he doesn't know what he needs to apologise for. It wasn't him who shot down the satellites beaming the subliminal suggestion across Planet Earth, and he didn't alter Archangel on the psychic level. Just... repurposed it a bit—let it saturate his mind so that when humanity acted as one, he could seize the moment. The power. It's not as if he came along and smashed the Master's toy for laughs—he had no choice. He didn't think, though, what hijacking Archangel would do to its source, or that the source was the Master's mind. It must've hurt and, worse, it must've snatched away that layer of psychic protection and left him exposed, without any chance to prepare.

It wasn't sticking him inside a locked room aboard the TARDIS that injured him—it was cancelling out Archangel.

He had no choice. None.

As the Doctor lets the Archangel construct leech away his surface emotions—the memory of Jack's screams, of Francine's shaking grip on the gun, of Japan, of the Toclafane and all the rest of it—the drums fall completely silent. And not just for the Doctor.

The Master sinks to one knee on the tiles, hand over his mouth muffling a groan that combines relief and loss and frustration, but sounds an awful lot like anguish.

"Come on," the Doctor says, as gently as he can, going over and putting his hand on the man's shoulder. He can't pretend that he'd have acted any differently if he'd known the consequences. He can't pretend that he doesn't care. "Let's see if this holds up in the real world."


	17. Paradox

Whatever the Time Lords have been up to for the past three days, it's doing wonders for the Master. The Doctor looks like hell, wound up so tight you can almost see him shaking where he stands—his back to the closed doors, hands buried deep in the pockets of his long coat.

Jack looks from one man to the other when they come aboard, but there's nothing to give him a clue. A placid, self-satisfied half-smile on the Master's face as he strolls in. That drained, pained look on the Doctor's.

"Everything good here?" Jack asks, warily. He felt safer when the Master could barely walk.

"Constant vigilance," the Master says, one fist clenched in mock-solidarity. "Well done, Captain." He heads off into the interior of the ship, still smiling to himself.

The Doctor nods, avoiding looking at him, and peels himself away from the doors to come and work the controls. Back to the middle of nowhere, the bleakest part of the universe he can think of. Jack breathes an actual sigh of relief, glad to be back where the Master can do least harm.

Eye contact is all it takes—his unspoken concern meeting the Doctor's brittle sham of outward normality. His face crumples and he turns away to hide it, a second too late.

"I can't do this." His voice is raw, cracked. "I thought I could do anything, but not this. Day after day of… of _nothing_." He tugs at his hair, straining for the self-control that he's too tired to hold on to. "Go on, say 'I told you so'."

Jack doesn't say it. He isn't happy about being proved right, or so soon.

"There are other options."

"Like what?" That's all it takes to turn the Doctor's anger outward. He turns on Jack, accusing. He looks wild, desperate. "Lock him away in the bowels of Torchwood? 'If it's alien, it's ours?' He's a Time Lord!"

"He's a monster." Jack has no problem standing his ground on this issue. He doesn't even have to try to remember all the good reasons why the Master should be safely locked up. "All that matters is that he's someplace he can't hurt anyone, including you. _Especially_ you. Are you doing this because he's a Time Lord, or because you feel you owe it to him?"

"To myself! How can you possibly understand? How long I've known him, what I've lost, what it costs me to hope and _keep_ hoping that he could be better than this?!"

You can feel the anger—not only an emotional force in the room, a psychic force, but tangible somehow in the air. It isn't aimed at Jack, or at anybody, and that's half the problem. Like the Doctor, it has nowhere to go, and this pressure-cooker situation they're in needs a vent. If yelling at Jack does it for him, Jack can stand and take it. Even stand to provoke it, if he thinks it might do some good. But the Doctor just looks lost, scared of his own outburst and what it says about him. His eyes glisten with tears before he turns his back on Jack to hide again, to pull himself together. He groans into his cupped hands, hiding his face.

"Why am I shouting at you?" he asks, a laughing hiccough of exasperation that almost gives way to a sob.

"It must be love," Jack quips, easily, then keeps talking to give the Doctor time to sort himself out. "First there's the romance, the candle-lit dinners and long walks in the moonlight. Then you hook up, have all the sex, move in together. Then the shouting starts."

The Doctor looks over his shoulder, sceptical.

"It's not exactly a Shakespearean sonnet, is it?" he complains, when Jack gives him nothing. "Where does 'love' fit into all that?"

"Everywhere."

He gets that look—that uncomfortable, tight-lipped, 'humans are weird but it would be rude to say so' look.

"Where's Ianto Jones on that set menu of relationship delights?"

Jack smiles, his cheeks and ears feeling a little warm.

"We've gone sort of a-la-carte." Flustered and not sure why, Jack clears his throat. Shouting, sex. Check. In that order. Moonlight walks, sure, if you count hunting Weevils. He's working up the nerve to try for the dinner date and candles. As for cohabitation—he never was any good at that part. It seems like the sort of thing Ianto would want, so Jack just hopes he never asks.

"You're blushing," the Doctor says, incredulous. He comes over for a better look, studying Jack like he's grown some sort of interesting fungus on his face. "You are, you're blushing."

Jack tries to look him in the eye, to laugh it off, but he can't quite manage to do either.

"You notice how we're suddenly talking about _my_ feelings?" he asks, dryly. "Don't go back to pretending you're okay if you're not."

"I have to be, don't I?" Now it's the Doctor avoiding eye contact. "I'm glad you're here, Jack. Really." Squirming, but trying hard, he kisses Jack's cheek. "Thank you."

You wouldn't think that'd be so hard for him, but it is. Exasperated, Jack pulls the Doctor against him and hugs tightly. He _knows_ that it helps, even if the Doctor has to remind himself every time to relax, to go with it—to _let_ it help. He kind of shudders in Jack's arms, then exhales slowly and takes what's on offer—the comfort, the warmth.

Privacy's been in short supply the last few days, along with relaxation and sleep. He thinks about a kiss, trying to seduce the Doctor into bed with him and get him to unwind, but all Jack wants right now is this, and lots of it.

_'I must be getting old.'_

"I heard that." The Doctor pulls back without breaking the circle of Jack's arms. "Struggling with your shield?"

Jack shakes his head, startled.

"No. I'm sorry." He tightens his hold on the shield, not sure how he's gone wrong. "Better?"

The Doctor places his left hand against Jack's cheek. His forehead wrinkles up as he feels his way around Jack's mind, careful as a man picking his way across thin ice. He puts on a sympathetic wince.

"You're trying too hard."

"You just said I wasn't trying hard enough."

"No, I didn't. I said I heard you." The Doctor focuses his gaze on Jack—looks him in the eye. "Let go."

Jack shakes his head, not understanding. He's not letting go of his defences while the Master's anywhere near, and he can't think why the Doctor would even suggest it.

"It'll hold," the Doctor promises, all unblinking sincerity and tender concern. "Trust me, stop trying so hard. The shield will hold. Let go."

He tries. He can't. Shakes his head, pulling away from the Doctor. His sense of the Doctor's mind gets less intense, but he can still feel it—another mind sheltering his, passive. Familiar as a face he's known all his life. The Doctor's there and ready to catch him, a trust fall, arms outstretched, but Jack can't do it.

"It'll hold," the Doctor repeats. When he talks that way, you believe him because he believes it himself, but Jack's conscious mind isn't what needs convincing. He shuts his eyes. Concentrates. Tries. It feels like being told to inhale underwater and trust that you're not gonna drown.

The Doctor kisses him, lightly, lingering against his lips—pressing his body close and gripping the back of Jack's neck. Distraction, Jack realises, though the kiss doesn't lack enthusiasm. He returns it, loving the way the Doctor holds his head still, like he can control a kiss.

It feels good, ulterior motive or not. Jack's not sure what's on offer here, or if the Doctor's come to any kind of a decision about this relationship. He's sure, drinking soft kisses, that this feels as good for the Doctor as it does for him.

 _'Reach for my thoughts.'_ There's that ulterior motive, but Jack's hardly averse to the idea of sharing _that_ sensation again. He reaches out, bypassing that kneejerk inability to loosen his hold on his defences, and meets something that feels like a smile. A smile on the inside, small and private, shared only with him, while the Doctor's mind repeats the check on the state of his shield. Approval, pride—pleasure in the kiss that's starting to edge towards the desire for more than kissing. Jack gasps, pulling the Doctor hard against him, hands splayed across his skinny ass.

He's used to a warm reception, but Jack thinks he could really get used to this; to _knowing_ , unequivocally, that the move he just made was welcome, that he's giving pleasure and making the other person want him more.

"I could get used to this," he murmurs, begrudging the breath, the time taken out of tasting the Doctor's mouth.

_'Shh. Use your mind. Focus on me.'_

Not a problem. Jack backs him against the console, pinning him, and deepens the kiss while he reaches out with thoughts that feel clumsy compared to his experienced hands. The Doctor makes a sound, muffled, while the excited meaning of it unfolds for Jack's touching mind—too complicated for words, too layered, too tangled with a thousand years of life experiences to stand in isolation. But the Doctor liked getting shoved against the console and kissed hard. He's left in no doubt of that.

The Master clears his throat, loudly, then watches with badly concealed amusement as the two of them stagger apart, half dazed from the intensity of the kiss. The Master stands at the inner door, hands folded behind his back, gazing up at them like he's come across a zoo exhibit that he finds more than mildly interesting.

"Who goes on top?" He brings his right hand from behind his back—points to the Doctor, then Jack, then back to the Doctor, his expression one of polite interest.

"What do you want?"

The Master blanks him completely and addresses the Doctor, while Jack's adrenaline rush catches up with him and leaves him fighting to control his breathing, his hate. Only after that does he think about his shield and realise that the Doctor was right. It's holding without him straining at it, and it's stronger this way.

"I need a lab," the Master announces. "If you can spare a minute."

"A… Right." The Doctor only falters for a second before he opts to carry on like nothing just happened. "Why?"

"I'm bored." It's a facetious answer, accompanied by a tight, sarcastic smile. The Master folds his hands behind his back again, and waits.

"She'll react if you try anything stupid," the Doctor warns. Jack feels like there's a negotiation going on that he isn't privy to—like these words he's hearing are just the top-note. "I won't stop her. After what you did to her, I'm not sure I could stop her."

Irritation tightens the muscle in the Master's left cheek—there's a brief twitch before he controls himself.

"It's your TARDIS. It's supposed to _obey_ you."

"Yeah," the Doctor says, a weary drawl. "That's why you can never keep a TARDIS any longer than you can keep a face. What kind of lab?"

"My own. Private."

Before the Doctor can answer, they're interrupted by the sound of tinny music. It's coming from the console, and it's not until the Doctor plucks Martha's phone from a recess that Jack realises it's a ringtone. It must be a message, because the music stops before the Doctor even gets his hand on the phone.

"Go ahead," Jack urges, when the Doctor just stands there staring at it. "What does she say?"

"Is that Miss Martha Jones?" The Master comes over, climbs the stairs, and although he moves carefully, he's steady enough on his feet that he doesn't need to put a hand on the rail. "Is she coming over to play?"

"Jack," the Doctor warns, before Jack even knows he's bunching up his fist. "Look at this."

Jack looks at the phone's tiny screen. It's gibberish, a solid block of alpha-numeric code with parts the system can't even display, and when the Doctor scrolls down, it goes on and on.

"I've drunk-texted an ex before now," Jack says, unnerved. He figured Martha would wait until she was ready and just call. "But not like that."

"I'm not her 'ex'." The Doctor has another look at the phone, takes out his sonic screwdriver, and bends over the console to tinker. A few seconds later, the code starts scrolling up the scanner screen, and the Doctor joins the two of them in watching it. When it reaches the end, it resets and repeats, but the Doctor doesn't read it twice—he looks askance at the Master, who does the same to him.

"Can you read it?" Jack wonders how much of their silent communication is telepathic, and how much is beyond even that.

"No." More tinkering. The Master hovers at the Doctor's shoulder, watching him work on the little phone. He restarts the thing, then drops it into a slot in the console and hits a few buttons.

A shaky video message appears on the scanner, interrupted by bursts of static. Martha speaks, but there's no sound. Something off-camera catches her attention—she listens, sags in disappointment, like this is one more item of bad news after she's already gotten numb to all the rest, then she grabs the camera she's using and stands up. The image lurches while she's moving, then steadies and shows them Martha standing in front of a UNIT insignia on the wall. It's not one of their own bases—someone's just taped a printed A4 sheet to the wall to identify the location as 'UNIT Interior Zone 1 – Command Station'.

Martha takes the camera back to where she started and turns it on her desk—on the paperwork there. She lets it linger for a few seconds, dancing in and out of autofocus, then turns the camera on a man standing next to her. He has the red beret of a UNIT soldier, and a UNIT ID badge pinned to his chest, but he's dressed like a civilian.

Jack glances at the Doctor. His face is frozen; he's absorbing details with fierce concentration. The Master's face is impassive.

The UNIT man holds up a device in each hand—a top-end mobile phone in his left, most of its casing removed, and a smooth, cigar-shaped object in his right. That's alien, or at least it _looks_ alien, and he's getting ready to touch one end of it to the internal circuitry of the phone.

Martha's hand comes into the picture—'wait'. She sets the camera back down on her desk, sits and gets herself into focus, and holds up a printed sheet of paper, covered in equations. Not all of them are in any notation used on Earth in the twenty-first century.

"Coordinates," the Master observes, though neither Jack nor the Doctor need telling. "Space-time coordinates."

"For the Earth," the Doctor agrees, hardly breathing.

Martha lowers the paper. Hesitates, staring into the camera with eyes that plead. Says,

"Please, Doctor," clearly enough for them to read her lips, holds their gaze through the lens for a long few seconds, then nods sharply at the man with the phone. The picture breaks up into static.

"Is she always so overdramatic?" The Master reaches towards the screen, then scowls and stops himself. "Let me see it again."

There's something really horrible about letting him have anything he wants in connection with Martha or her family. Jack's about to object, but the Doctor is already entering the coordinates and takes no notice of the Master. The TARDIS dematerialises.

"You're just going to go running to the rescue? What if it's a trap?"

"Why would Martha lure me into a trap?"

"She's working with UNIT," Jack points out, doubtful. He can only think of one reason Martha would send a message like that—the Earth needs the Doctor, and it's so bad she can't even make a voice call. "They don't exactly love you right now, thanks to him."

"Maybe they had her at gunpoint." The Master grins, pleased with the idea—enjoying this little drama. "Or threatened her family."

Jack comes _this_ close to punching his lights out.

"Yeah," Jack growls. "Because she's putty under duress."

The Doctor grins a manic little grin at that. His face falls when the TARDIS makes a grinding noise, and he starts grabbing for controls on opposite sides of the console.

"I could help," the Master offers, brightly.

"You could get hogtied and gagged," Jack retorts, pushing him back to the rail with fingertips against his chest. "Stay there. Shut up."

"She doesn't want to land," the Doctor complains.

"Let me see that message," the Master insists, ignoring the way the ship keeps lurching. This time Jack puts his hand flat against the Master's chest and uses his whole body weight to shove him back against the rail.

"Stay there!" Who _don't_ you want in the mix if the Earth is in danger, if Martha Jones needs help? _'God!'_ "Stay out of this."

The Doctor fights his ship for control. It's noisy, a queasy couple of minutes where they get buffeted about and the lights keep dimming, the Doctor alternately coaxing and cursing, but he wins and materialises the TARDIS. Only a couple of little circuits in the console explode in the process.

"And you go on about what _I_ did to this thing! How many safeguards did you just disable to get a lock?"

"Shut up," the Doctor mutters, without looking up, but the Master looks smug. "Let's have a look."

Jack has a bad feeling as the Doctor runs to the outer doors. He goes too, the Master following them both, unhurried.

The Doctor opens the doors with a flourish, then they all stand and stare.

For a long few seconds, Jack can't even take in what he's seeing—a dark shape moving, drifting past them right to left, so vast that he has no sense of scale or distance. He can make out points of light that might be windows, or portholes, or running lights. It dwarfs the TARDIS, which holds station until the massive object passes them by. Only then is Jack sure that they're in space, and only once the vast ship clears his field of vision can he see the Earth, far off and tiny. His heart plunges into his stomach when he catches sight of the European continent, and how small Cardiff seems from here.

"If that's carrying an invasion force," he says, "I think we're badly outnumbered."

The Doctor darts between Jack and the Master, forcing both to turn aside to let him through. Back at the console, he brings the scanner screen to face him and tries to see what they couldn't see from the doors.

There's a bleep—a message, incoming.

"Looks like they want to talk," the Doctor observes, putting it on loudspeaker.

"Attention, unmarked stationary capsule off our port side," announces an uncertain, male voice. "Uh, the blue one."

The Doctor grins from ear to ear.

"You have my attention, great big ship right in front of me and heading for planet Earth. This is the Doctor speaking. Who am I talking to?"

"Uh, Frame, sir. Midshipman Frame of the Starliner _Titanic_. You gave us quite a scare there, sir."

"The what now?"

"The way your capsule just appeared, sir. We were afraid we might have hit you. Do you require any assistance?"

"Usually." The Doctor tugs his earlobe and looks at Jack, then the Master. "Um, Midshipman Frame, you did say the _Titanic_?"

"That's correct, sir."

He's just a kid, Jack thinks, noting the pitch of the voice, and the hesitancy. No idea of the protocol in a situation for which there are no protocols in place, namely a wooden blue box appearing in your flight path.

"Mister Frame, could I speak with your captain?" The Doctor grimaces. "And then maybe to your P.R. department," he adds, under his breath.

"Sir? Oh, yes, sir. One moment, sir. And, uh, merry Christmas, sir."

The comms hum for a moment, and then there's muzak. It's a swinging rendition of 'Jingle Bells', and Jack's heard it before.

"Well," the Doctor says, pocketing his hands and staring at the screen. A massive steam ship is drifting sedately into Earth's orbit. "There's something you don't see every day."

Jack looks over his shoulder.

"That's a Capricorn cruise liner," he says, relieved. "We have to order them off every few years when their landing parties get rowdy or spook the locals. They come for Christmas or New Year or whatever, soak up the atmosphere and primitive culture. Tourists."

"We as in Torchwood?"

"Yeah. They're crazy, but they move on in a day or so."

"The _Titanic_?"

"That's a new one," Jack admits. He'd have remembered writing _that_ report.

"Mister Doctor?" It's the kid again, sounding a lot more sure of himself.

"It's just Doctor."

"Sorry, sir. Doctor. I'm afraid the Captain is otherwise engaged at the moment. He asked me to extend the compliments of the season to you, and to ask if you wish to come aboard."

"Aboard the Titanic," the Doctor says, flat-voiced.

"Yes, sir. For the party, sir." Silence over the radio, then, "You must be pretty cramped in there, sir. Oh! And it's strictly black-tie, sir."

The Doctor thanks the kid, signs off, and bursts out laughing. Nobody joins in.

"Doctor," Jack interrupts, firmly but gently. "Martha."

"Yes. Sorry." The poker-face is instant. A moment later, the Doctor looks guilty and makes himself busy over the controls. "Let's have a look at that ship."

"They embark from the planet Sto," Jack remembers. The last time he had to deal with these people on Earth, it was New Year's eve, and there'd been alcohol. A lot of it. "Their merchant fleet is backed by the commerce guild. They regulate hard."

"Too busy making money to start a war," the Doctor agrees. He brings up readings from the _Titanic_. "She's a standard intergalactic class liner, under the nautical set-dressing. Not even fitted with defensive weaponry. State of the art shielding. Seriously, though, who'd name their ship the _Titanic_? Doesn't anybody read these days?"

The Master's silence is conspicuous. Jack glances over his shoulder and sees hard eyes and a thoughtful frown. Following Jack's gaze, the Doctor gestures, and sounds mildly incredulous at himself for including the Master in the discussion.

"Anything to add?"

The Master shakes off his frown and arranges his face—pleasant, neutral.

"Me? No. Black tie aboard the _Titanic_. On you go. Party like it's 1912."

The Doctor hesitates, glancing at the screen again.

"Martha wants you here," Jack says.

"Yes, and wasn't she specific? We arrived right as they began to enter the planet's orbit." Speaking about Martha, the Master can even make a factual remark like that sound insulting. He's right though. Spacetime coordinates—that information could only have come from UNIT. Or Torchwood.

Jack wants to teleport down there and check on his people. Right now. While the Doctor goes to change his clothes, Jack keeps thinking about what Martha said to him in London. _'Saving the world with the Master in tow? He's mental!'_ She wouldn't even ask unless it was serious—unless she thought it was worth that much of a risk. Exactly how bad would things have to be?

He scans the planet below—checks on the Cardiff Rift. Things have settled down since the last major breach. Even if the Rift is now more like a revolving door in spacetime than an intermittently volatile vent, it isn't currently unstable enough to cause problems beyond the wider Cardiff area.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" The Master is behind him, following his activities on the screen. He steps a little closer, ignoring Jack's personal space. "The Rift?" The skin between Jack's shoulders crawls at the tone of voice—the interested, pleasant, almost reverent tone that often heralded his suffering aboard the _Valiant_. Those one-sided conversations. Jack can recall the pain without losing his cool, but that matter-of-fact voice sends him into a cold sweat.

"It's numbers on a screen," he says, brusquely.

"Not to me."

"I guess not."

"Do you really need a machine to tell you if it's quiet? Can't you just feel it?"

"No."

"You've lived on top of it for… how long?"

"Did you want something, or are you just pushing your luck?" 

"Show me the message again."

Jack ignores him and goes back to checking out the _Titanic_. She's an old ship, refurbished and dressed up with fancy passenger accommodation, but there are no red flags in the readings. She manoeuvres tidily into a high orbit, just close enough for teleport range, broadside to the planet so the tourists can get a good view of the blue world below. Earth, give or take those agencies employing alien tech, won't even know she's there.

He grabs Martha's phone and starts to dial her new number, but a stinging spark of energy discharge makes him drop it before he's hit two digits. When he bends to pick it up, the Master says,

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"That wasn't static. Show me that message." His voice is clipped now, controlled. When Jack bends again to retrieve the phone, the Master kicks it away from them, across the grating. "Will you listen to me? Show me that message!"

Jack's done with this. He grabs the Master's arm, pulls him over to the rail at the top of the exit ramp, and handcuffs him to it by the left wrist. The Doctor won't like it, but the Doctor will like it even less if Jack flattens the bastard's nose with his fist when his self-control finally snaps.

"That's all you are is it?" Tugging at the cuff, the Master loses his cool. "Hired muscle? Hired cock?"

"I'm giving that away," Jack says, with relish he doesn't feel. He picks up the phone and dials Martha's number, but the call doesn't go through. This is one of the Doctor's doctored phones—universal roaming. It works anywhere it can get power. He tries again, then tries Gwen's number. Then his own landline at the Hub. Nothing. Not a busy signal, just nothing. Maybe the Doctor's tinkering just now broke it.

The Doctor bounds up the steps, stops, and stares.

"Release me!" The Master demands, reddening. "I won't be manhandled by this oaf!"

"Jack?"

"Little disagreement about boundaries," Jack says, shortly. "I can't raise Martha on this thing. Can't raise anyone."

The Doctor looks from one to the other, never blinking as he slowly ties the bowtie at his throat.

"Hot."

"Mm?"

"The suit. You look great."

"Oh." A blank moment, then the Doctor adds, uncomfortably, "Thanks."

There's an 'ugh' of disgust from the Master, but he has other things on his mind.

"Look at the woman's message again," he insists.

"Why?"

"Because this isn't right."

"Specifics?"

"Not until your boy toy lets me see that message properly!"

"Uncuff him, Jack," the Doctor says, quietly. He says it without any reproach, but he's deadly serious. He doesn't wait for an answer, or to see if Jack's going to obey; he turns to the controls and navigates the short hop over to the _Titanic_. "There. At least now she has enough lifeboats."

With bad grace, Jack unlocks the cuff from the rail, but he leaves it attached to the Master's wrist.

"You're really going out there based on a summons from Martha Jones?"

"Yes, I am. And you're staying here with Jack, so try to get along."

"Let me come with you."

They stare at him. The Doctor adjusts his left cufflink, then the right.

"You want to be my plus-one on the __Titanic__?"

"No I bloody don't! I want to know what sort of trap this is, and stop it, before I'm stranded in your TARDIS for all eternity with Captain Torchwood, here!"

"You don't need to worry about that," Jack puts in, before the Doctor can answer. "I'll kill you if anything happens to the Doctor, remember?"

"I wasn't asking you!"

"Let him see the message again," the Doctor says, touching Jack's arm. Play nicely. "I won't be long. Keep trying Martha."

"Will do."

The Doctor's dying to get out there, get involved—can barely conceal his excitement or giddy relief as he descends the ramp. They all know Martha didn't send that message just to get him to a fancy party, but the Doctor lives in hope. That's his lifestyle—hope for the best, deal with the worst.

"Reckless idiot," the Master mutters under his breath, as the Doctor steps outside and shuts the door.

"He trusts Martha with his life," Jack tells him, trying to shut the conversation down. He tries Martha's number again. "With good reason, in case you haven't been paying attention."

"Show me that message. _Now._ "

Jack's not in the mood to give him anything he wants, but the Doctor said to let him see it again. Grudgingly, he navigates back to the extrapolated message and lets the Master see it again. Jack hates to look at it—Martha's distress and fear. He's barely known her any other way, and that's wrong.

"There." The Master jabs his finger at the screen when Martha turns the camera on her desk full of documents. He barely makes contact with the thing, but the TARDIS zaps him so hard he's knocked back against the rail, rubber knees folding under him.

"Whoops," Jack says, without feeling. The Doctor promised that the Master can't use the controls, or even touch them. It's beyond reassuring to get a practical demonstration.

"Pause it," the Master insists, struggling back to his feet and nursing his singed fingertips in the other hand. "I need to see those papers."

There's something about his voice that convinces Jack not to argue. He isn't pretending to be interested in anybody's wellbeing but his own—not trying to deceive about his intentions. And he thought it was urgent enough to forget himself and touch the TARDIS. Jack does what he asked and pauses the image, flicking through until he finds the sharpest frame showing the contents of Martha's desk.

"There." This time, the Master points carefully, not touching. "Look." He's pointing to an open file, UNIT classified, the visible document authorising the release of the device the young soldier is holding in the video. Jack skims it, then shrugs.

"So?"

"Look at the _date_ ," the Master demands, impatient. "That message was sent back in time."

He's right. Jack's mouth turns dry when he sees the date below the letterhead—three months from now. Martha knows better. Anyone who's ever travelled with the Doctor knows better, and UNIT know better. She's sent them into the past, potentially disrupting her own timeline.

"Paradox," he says, uneasily. If they do whatever Martha's sent them here to do—to prevent from happening, presumably—then she'll never need to send the message that brought them here. The timeline unravels—hers and theirs. Even a Time Lord has to be careful about this sort of intervention. "He needs to know." Jack heads for the door, but the Master grabs his arm and hauls him back.

"You think he didn't see this? He doesn't _care_."

He's probably right. The state the Doctor was in earlier, itching for his old life? He's probably right.

_'Dammit'._

"Then I'm gonna help him."

As Jack launches towards the door, the Master punches him so hard he sees stars; gets spun around and knocked sprawling across the grating. Jack surges back to his feet, dizzy, ready to commit cold-blooded murder, but the Master isn't ready to try again. He's calm, and that was a calculated move he just made, not an outburst of temper.

"We stay here." The Master makes it an order and expects to be obeyed. There's blood in Jack's mouth—a thundering ache in his left cheek, and the feeling that his brain just rattled against the inside of his skull. "Alone, he might minimise the damage to the timeline. The more variables, the more disruption, the greater the ripple effect. Do you understand?"

Jack knows the risks—every Time Agent knows the risks, and spends most of their career cleaning up exactly this kind of mess. You can't fix it from the inside, once you're part of events, because you won't even know there's a problem. You won't ever know it if you're living the same loop of time over and over, trapped in the consequences of one, stupid decision.

"What's it to you?" Not a rhetorical question, not sarcastic. He speaks quietly. "Compared to what you did on Earth, changing the whole future of the human race, this is nothing."

"I don't answer to you. Scan that ship."

"I don't take orders from _you_."

He's right, though. The less they interfere here, the better. Would it kill the Doctor to carry a communicator, a damn phone? Or to tell someone his plans for once?

Jack scans the _Titanic_ again. Just… not because he was ordered to.

"Can he get away with it?"

"It's possible. The smaller the intervention, the better."

"Martha wouldn't have done this unless the whole planet was at stake."

"Are you sure? She seemed particularly single-minded, to me. Like her mother. And the sister, what was her name… Tish. Pretty, pouty little Tish." The Master makes a little sucking sound of lustful appreciation.

Jack spins on his heel and returns the earlier punch, with interest. The Master staggers, catches himself, and comes up grinning. Split lip and bloody teeth, eyes bright with malice.

"You're not worthy even to speak her name," Jack spits. "So _don't_."

The Master laughs, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"Does the Doctor go for this level of machismo?"

He could weep, trying to hold on to his rage. There's nobody in the universe who'd blame him for killing the Master where he stands—killing him as payback for what he suffered aboard the _Valiant_ , or just as a safety precaution. Nobody except the Doctor, who'd never forgive him, even though he can forgive the Master for everything he's done. That's not fair, and it's never going to be okay.

Blinking back tears of fury, Jack monitors the _Titanic_.

"It's impressive." The Master can't take a hint. His death wish is something more than metaphorical. "This loyalty. After everything he's done to you."

Jack grinds his teeth together, refusing to blurt a reply. He tries to keep himself from glancing down at the collar control unit on his wrist, but it's tempting. _So_ tempting.

"He wasn't like this when you met, was he? You met the one before. I never did."

"Guess you fell off his Christmas card list, what with hiding out at the end of the universe and pretending to be dead."

"Did he confess what he'd done, back then? Confess to genocide?"

"Yep." Jack wishes the readings in front of him were more interesting, or even more challenging to interpret. He wishes he'd gone with the Doctor. "Time Lords. Daleks. He doesn't hide like a coward."

"He's afraid that twice isn't enough, you know. That he's going to do it again."

"I know."

"What else do you think you know about the Doctor?"

Jack turns. He's a little bit terrified of the ice-cold calm that's creeping over him, the more the Master talks and pushes him.

"He's a better man than you. What else do I need to know right now?"

There's blood all over the Master's chin. Angry, mottled red mark where Jack's fist caught him, promising deep bruising to come.

"I can tell you what he needs."

A disgusted sound in his throat, Jack turns back to the readings.

"There's so much he's keeping from you, holding back. But you know that. You know that you can barely touch him, don't you?"

What's his game? Does he _like_ getting hit? No. It's not that. This is the shortest route to 'divide and conquer', if the Doctor starts thinking Jack can't be trusted around the prisoner. Then,

"He asked you if you wanted to die. Do you?"

"Thanks to you I got it out of my system." He suppresses his shudder. Doesn't need those memoires now, when he's trying to focus, and using every spare bit of energy he has to keep from beating the Master to the ground.

"Because anything that can be done can be undone. The power that made you immortal can change you back again."

"Yeah? Maybe I'll get lucky, someday." Two people like Rose in one lifetime? Jack's not about to start holding his breath for that to happen. Movement on the edge of the scanner catches his eye. Meteoroid activity. At the same time, the _Titanic_ reroutes power on a massive scale, away from propulsion and shields.

"Oh, no," Jack says, kicking himself for not seeing it sooner—the potential for danger. People look at a scenario and don't think to factor in sabotage. It's Jack's _job_ to think like that, and as much as he hates having to think the worst of everybody he meets, it works. He activates the comms. "Hey there, Titanic. Something wrong with your shields?"

"Um…" It's the kid again, Midshipman Frame. "Sorry, who is this?"

"One of the other people crammed inside the little blue capsule. My name's Jack. What's going on over there? You have a massive power diversion and—" And it _had_ to go and get worse. "And your hull has become magnetised, you're pulling those meteoroids in."

"Yes, sir." The kid's voice has gone toneless, a little faint. "The Captain's orders, sir." He clears his throat and says, calmly, "I think he's gone mad, sir."

"Then relieve him of command!" Jack eyes the scanner, the approaching cloud of little rocks. None of them are big, but without shields and at that velocity, they're going to tear through the _Titanic_ like she's made of tin-foil. "Get those shields back up, Midshipman!"

"Doing my best, sir, only the Captain has a gun. Could you stay on the line? I… I think I'd like an impartial witness right about now."

"I'm here."

"Thank you."

Jack thinks of teleporting over to the bridge of the _Titanic_ , but the Doctor was clear about not using that anywhere near the TARDIS.

"Aren't you going to hurry to the rescue?" The Master comes near enough that he can watch the screen. There's a gunshot, so loud it distorts the signal, a brief cry of pain and shock from the kid, then someone on the other end closes the comms. "Too late. Poor chap. I wonder why the Doctor didn't save him?"

"Can we extend the TARDIS shield around the _Titanic_?" Jack moves around the console. He knows which controls, how to disassemble, clean and reassemble them, but not how to use them, or even if it's possible to stretch the shield to encompass that much mass. He fixes the Master with a look. "Come on, can it work?!"

"Of course." The Master comes over, reaches a hand over the console, then makes a playful pantomime of fearful hesitation, of cringing back, of regret. "But I can't touch anything. And you don't know what to do. And the Doctor's out there having nibbles and drinks—he'd never get back here in time. Such a shame."

With a cry of frustration, Jack goes back to the comms and tries to raise the ship again. He broadens the signal so that anyone with any kind of a receiver stands a chance of picking it up, but he gets nothing.

The _Titanic_ has a little over a minute before impact.

"Show _me_ how to extend the shield." Jack faces the Master, spreading his arms—a 'how hard can it be?' expression on his face.

The Master smirks.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you don't want him dead any more than I do."

Shrug.

"He'll survive. He always does."

"And everybody else aboard that ship?" God, no, it's worse than that. The _Titanic_ has a radioactive power source. If she loses power… loses orbit… God, no. No. "We're talking about countless lives."

The Master doesn't care. He just stands there, relishing the fact that Jack _does_.

"So many possible futures, Jack." A contained, cold smile. A little bounce on his toes, hands folded neatly in front of him, the steel cuffs dangling. "I can see them all. So can he. The agony he's in right at this moment, trying to warn them. To save them. Maybe he's trying to get back here to extend the shields around the _Titanic_. He could make it in time. Or not."

"You bastard."

"Insults lose their piquancy across species, don't you find?" The Master is serene, half an eye on the scanner to follow the progress of the disaster. "Drop your shield."

"What?" Through a fog of reddish rage, Jack shakes his head, not understanding.

The Master taps his own temple with two fingers, lifting his eyebrows in challenge. Invitation.

"I don't have time to teach a backwards ape how to control the most advanced technology in the universe before that ship is torn to shreds," he says, easily. "But I can show you. If you drop that shiny new shield and let me put the knowledge directly into your quaint little brain." He glances at the screen. Is that a hint of strain there on his face? Jack can't tell. Could call his bluff and ride out the consequences. Could hope the Doctor has time to save everyone aboard, everyone on the planet below. "Tick tock, Captain. Tick tock. What would the Doctor do?"

"Do it," Jack grates, and then fights with himself to let it happen. He hates the Master so much right now that he can _taste_ it. "Do it!" he yells, and the Master closes the distance between them so fast that Jack hardly registers the movement. Grabs his face, leans in and kisses him on the lips. Jack has just enough time to think about throwing him across the room before the Master's mind steamrollers his, making the physical world irrelevant. He screams, or tries to, as the Master claws the remnants of his psychic protection aside and plunges into his mind.

Infodump. The word, the concept, surfaces through the pain, the loss of self. Then, beyond that, something else unfolds—the pleasure that waits on the other side of pain, deep and twisted, flooding his body, his being. The awareness of the Master's mind—like the Doctor's but so different, and so much more open to him right now that he could reach out and…

The Master pulls out, mind and body simultaneously, and Jack grabs for him—clumsy mind, feeble hands, his body shaking, retching, panting, sweating. He's pleading, and the Master is smiling. His mind is burning with the knowledge, the understanding.

The Master takes him by the shoulders and turns him, firmly, to face the controls.

"Quickly." The word resonates right through Jack, making him weak at the knees. He forces his hands to the controls, hands that don't feel like they belong to him, the intricate, lightspeed calculations unfolding inside his head in migraine agony, and throws their shield around the _Titanic_ with seconds to spare.

Most of the meteoroids vaporise on impact. No harm done. The Master shrugs and turns away.

Jack passes out cold. 


	18. Complementarity

_At the first chapter meeting since your untimely regeneration, you find yourself standing in the opposite rank from him. As the speakers move ponderously up and down in the space between the stalls, absorbed in their oration, he keeps catching your eye, trying to make you laugh outwardly as well as inwardly, but you keep your face composed and your back straight._

_It's the first time you've worn the robes in this female form. You were indifferent to becoming female; you were irked to find yourself suddenly so **small**. People take you for frail, but that's their mistake. You're slight, pale in colouring; the short, severe crop of your fair hair only adding to the outward impression of delicacy. You're fast, so fast. You can slip in and out of notice at will, and watch everything, unseen. But it has its drawbacks, this vanishing female form. You're swamped in your hard-earned robes and collar, rather than wearing them with the proper noble bearing, and the weight of the ceremonial costume on your shoulders tires you. _

_Everything tires you, just now, and for all that you pay polite attention to the tedious debates, and as deftly as you resist his attempts to make you smirk, you're distracted from the proceedings by knowing that he's going to be furious with you when he finds out why you're so tired. You're looking forward to glimpsing his blazing passion again. It's been far too long._

_He finds you afterwards, when the chapter has broken up into groups of allies—a sedate, gossiping drift towards the robing rooms and the refreshments. You get it over with then and there, shrugging off the gold sash and stiff red robe that effectively concealed your advanced pregnancy. Your close-fitting red gown conceals absolutely nothing._

_He stares, not furious with you but afraid. Afraid for you. Perhaps even… a little… afraid **of** you? _

_You weren't expecting that._

 

Harkness, unconscious at his feet and bleeding on the floor. It's almost like the good old days.

The Master crouches next to the human and takes a moment—takes what he's never been able to take before; the measure of Captain Jack Harkness. The attire. The physique. The intellect and the emotions—the unique and potent impression of a mind that is no longer entirely human. Unshielded, the Doctor's lover reads as chaotic, incomprehensible; so much animal instinct glossed over with a wafer thin veneer of cultivated and curated thought. And beyond that, there's the aura of time itself shattering around his impossibility. The universe should crumble, causality fracturing beyond repair, but that doesn't happen. Harkness takes another breath, and another, and causality simply bends to allow him to exist. It does not do so without resistance, without a kaleidoscope of terrible fallout, but it works.

It goes on working. Reality bends to breaking point and then fails to break.

It's hideous, defying all known laws, all logic. It makes a Time Lord flinch and turn away, too disturbed to go on looking. Yet, when the Master finally does look closely and for long enough, he sees the patterns in the grotesquery. Order beyond his comprehension wrapped inside the sickening chaos. He sees reality itself change its mind.

True immortality. This is it—the shape of it, the face of it. The price of it.

Harkness takes a deeper, stuttering breath, the mind beginning to surface towards consciousness. The Master quickly goes through his pockets. Nothing of any use except for a bunch of keys. The smallest key fits the cuffs around his wrist. He drops them onto the man's chest along with the keys. He examines the collar control unit on its leather wrist strap, but it doesn't respond to his touch. The Master drags Harkness's other hand across and forces the thumb against the sensor. Nothing.

"Thought of everything, didn't you?"

On his other wrist, Harkness wears a thicker and broader leather strap with a time agent's vortex manipulator attached. Only now, seeing it up close, is the Master sure that it's the same one Martha Jones used to escape from the _Valiant_ , the day he took over her world. Harkness gave it to her in the confusion. Could've taken her along with him, but he gave it to her instead. Stayed with the Doctor, loyal to the death. Deaths, plural and pointless. A foolish and empty gesture. Why? When he could have gone with the woman instead, joined in her little quest, done more to protect her than he was able to do for the Doctor by staying behind… why?

That question is going to have to wait.

What are the options, here? Teleport? He isn't locked out of those controls—the interface lights up at his touch. A vortex manipulator is no way to travel, but it could take him beyond the Doctor's reach. There's just the problem of the restraint collar. It's a short-range device, and even if he takes the control unit with him, it's likely that Harkness has found some way of making him regret any escape attempt. Homing beacon? Booby trap? Deadman's switch?

For a moment, the Master considers taking the risk. Then he thinks better of it. Harkness doesn't equivocate. Unlike the Doctor, he has no crisis of conscience over dealing with a prisoner. Teleporting with the collar still around his neck would probably be a terminal move.

That leaves the door. Assuming that he can exit this capsule without the Doctor in attendance, how far could he get? He might manage to take hostages aboard the starliner—force the Doctor to unlock the collar in return for sparing their lives. And then…

And then all the Doctor has to do is close his mind, withdraw his efforts, and let the Archangel matrix fail on its own. The Master will go back to that distraction, that fog, that torment—clouding his judgement, undermining his reason, his discipline. Back to the drumbeat that's driven him mad.

He can see it quite clearly, now. He's been in a state of madness, in that his ability to discern and comprehend reality has been… compromised. The lack of order, of clarity, and of control. One cannot truly control others without first controlling oneself.

The Master stops before he puts a hand on the TARDIS doors. Swallows.

All the Doctor has to do is let him go and wait for him to die. Somehow. Somewhen.

He waits for the rage to engulf him, but there's only anger—thin, hard and cold inside him. Perfectly rational and, therefore, able to wait.

But he has to know. He has to know if he can open that door and walk away.

Half expecting another jarring shock, he pulls on the door. It opens onto a plush corridor, the room beyond it obscured by a velvet curtain. The buzz of confused, agitated humanoids debating what didn't just happen to them. The smell of fine cuisine, alcohol, recycled air, energy weapons and humanity.

The Master steps across the threshold and experiences two things. One, he's insulted that the Doctor would allow him this much freedom, unescorted. Two, the paradox the Jones woman has engineered wrenches at his senses, momentarily distorting the sights and sounds of the _Titanic_ , now unwittingly caught at the centre of that paradox.

It's stable. Just.

 _Click._ The unmistakable, sound of a handgun being readied for firing. Pressure against the back of his skull, the base of his skull where a gunshot would minimise his chances of a successful regeneration.

Harkness.

"He lets you have a _gun_?" He's incredulous about that, not afraid of dying, as he slowly raises his hands in surrender.

"What do you think?" Harkness sounds terrible. _Feels_ terrible, his psychic signature shearing and roiling as one temporal paradox steps into another, sporting a prize headache and a blinding hatred. The Master stops the wince reaching his face and stands perfectly still. Harkness might be angry enough to pull that trigger. He just might. "So give me another good reason why I shouldn't end you, right here."

"The mess?" Without lowering his hands, he directs his index fingers towards the plush velvet curtain ahead of him. Grins.

"Ah, _fuck you_ ," Harkness blurts.

Sudden movement, sharp pain—the crack of the pistol's grip against the back of his skull. It's enough to make the Master stagger, weakened as he is, but he's already turning and aiming himself at the human's throat when Harkness triggers the shock collar.

 

_His consort, his mate, looks as though she's got a sour fruit sitting on her tongue and she's too polite to spit. You almost laugh at her, at the backward prudery of her, but he guides you towards a wide flight of stairs, his hand firm at your back and propelling you away from the impending conflict. Up the stairs, slowing when he sees that you are tired._

_He shows you to a room at the top of the house—small, square, furnished with clean lines and cool functionality. Such rooms are for the extended household, the hangers-on, the servants, but you know he intends no slight by it; he intends to put as much distance as possible between you and his affronted wife._

_Only with the door shut behind him does his true reaction overspill his public restraint. It darkens his blue eyes, the way an ocean darkens under cloud._

_As if to encompass the entirety of the situation, the enormity, his shock at what you've done, he breathes heavily while sketching out your shape, your new shape, sculpting you out of the air in front of him until he manages to consolidate it all into a breathy explosion of,_

_"Why?!"_

_You smooth your hands across your belly, ribs to pelvis. It's odd, how protective you feel of the life growing inside you. You want no hostility encroaching on the developing consciousness. That's why you came to him. Who else?_

_"Because I can."_

_"Your family, your house—"_

_You haven't gone back there to your father's household. Not for years now, since you left the Academy. You've lived in laboratories, in starships, in time capsules, in the guts of machinery and the utilitarian, temporary spaces that accommodate travellers. Always moving on, your work the only home you've needed._

_"They'll only have half a name," he warns, as though that isn't obvious to you. "Half a pedigree, half a start in life."_

_"She'll only have half the trouble, then."_

_He concedes that oblique point, calming down enough to stop throwing objections at you. As if you haven't thought of everything._

_You sit on the end of the narrow bed and search for a posture that eases your spine without eroding your outward poise. Female garments help with that—stiffened, supportive, uplifting and restrictive. The more formal, the more they enclose you, so the scarlet gown from your ceremonial wardrobe holds you upright. You feel… in this regeneration, you feel more… You feel younger than you did before, although you appear to be a little older, and you feel younger than him, because newness comes with uncertainty. You want to lean on him. Just a little bit, to test how strong he is, and find out if he'll support you._

_His bare feet shuffle on nutwood floorboards, breaking a sunbeam. Then his troubled face brightens._

_"She?" He drops to one knee before you, gazing up, all the practical considerations tossed aside as he identifies your daughter as an individual, and marvels that she exists. Marvels that she's growing inside your body, biding her time while she achieves self. His face softens, tender, moved, and you almost roll your eyes at him. He's become sentimental now that he has his own offspring, treating each of them as though he loves them. Perhaps he does. You've never seen him blaze for them, burn for them, shine for them, the way he's always shone for you. Perhaps you will. Perhaps you'll understand him again, when you can look into your daughter's eyes, and know what it is to have a helpless life depending on you to make the world safe._

_His hands creep up, hesitant, and cup your abdomen, feeling the roundness, the firmness of you. He touches you as though he's afraid you might bruise or break. Again, you refrain from rolling your eyes at this display of sentiment, because you love to see his childlike wonder. His consort, the stiff-backed aristocrat below, gestated the couple's offspring to term. Therefore, he's seen a woman in this state before, but you'll bet your sash that his wife's never seen him kneel at her feet, smiling like the little boy he once was while his hands explore so gently._

_So gently that it tickles, in fact. Given the current prominence of your reproductive hormones, it also makes you wish that he would move his hands lower down and please you. He would, if you asked, but you don't. It's unspoken between you, that you leave those sweet bodily urges in your boyhood—that you'll take them up again at your leisure, when your positions are unassailable. It waits. You have both learned patience._

_Still, you touched all the time, before your regeneration—that easy, platonic affection you'd drifted into as your lives pulled you apart more and more of the time, and softened your desperate love with sober maturity. Now you don't quite know how to touch him, or if you should, as if this random chromosomal difference sets him suddenly beyond easy reach. Unfair. He looks almost the same through these new eyes of yours as he did before, but there's an invisible barrier. An uneasy reserve. A respectful caution. You choose to blame that on your present gender, or on the abruptness and trauma of the change, so that you can avoid thinking about what the real reason might be._

_"She needs another mind," you venture. You were certain of his moral support all along. That he'll assist you in this, involve himself in any practical way with your unconventional choice, is less certain. The scandal could rebound upon his house in public, and his spouse will definitely rebound all over him in private. As soon as he leaves this room, probably. "Another guide. I won't be in any fit state while she's being born."_

_You picture yourself straining to push the infant from your body—your expression fierce with concentrated effort, face purple and ugly with grit-teeth determination. You feel nothing but a mild distaste at this primal and bloody vision of parturition. All your experience, all your training, has taught you that life's fruits are bought with your effort and pain. You'd expect nothing less. "Help me bring her into the world. I don't want their narrow minds anywhere near her." By 'their', you mean every mind on the planet besides yours and his. He understands this. You'll give your daughter everything you have, but you need him to give her what you lack, so that you don't have to pretend to be whole without him. "Then I'll go. If you want. If that harpy won't give you any peace about it."_

_He tries to look disapproving at this description of his genetic consort—to knit his fluffy, pale eyebrows at you and purse his mobile and expressive lips into coldness, but he can't stop himself smiling instead. That wonderful smile. He's enchanted by your daughter, by the prospect of this shared rebellion, and so are you._

_It's more than you've had in common in some time._

 

Arguing. Loud. He can estimate the size of the room he's in from the echo of the voices. Console room. TARDIS. The Doctor's. Harkness and the Doctor, hammer and tongs, all their awkward lovey-dovey stripped back to the fundamentals of their utter incompatibility.

The Master smiles to himself and stays still, healing, becoming aware of cold metal beneath his cheek and his left hand. They're behind him, some distance away, yet someone else is touching him. Hand beneath his neck, small. Human body temperature, moist with stress.

"Don't move," comes a woman's voice, hushed and very worried. "Just lie still. You've hit your head."

"Something like that." He's stronger than he has been for weeks. Rolls and sits up without a struggle, only mildly dizzy, only mildly inconvenienced by the lingering pain from the neural shock, finding himself on the ramp inside the TARDIS doors. He's face to face with one of humanity's finer specimens. Female. Young. Petite. Eyes wide with concern, mouth ready to smile at the first hint of reassurance. She's dressed as a menial—neat black dress trimmed with white, short white apron, little personal adornment besides the elaborate styling of her hair. This doesn't diminish her.

The Master smiles, apologetic and just pained enough to leave her worried about him.

"Hello." His single word brings out that smile, beaming bright, her posture loosening in relief at finding that his brains haven't been scrambled beyond repair. "They sound cross." He tips his head in the direction of the argument, fingering the swelling bruise on the back of his skull. The woman nods, unsure what to do. She doesn't know these men; she just wanted to help someone who was lying unconscious on the ground.

That's his type—the Doctor's type. Young, female, eager to help, overly sincere. Noticeably more alert and engaged with consciousness than the majority of her kind. And pretty, of course. He likes them pretty. This one has an ethereal, blonde beauty that puts him in mind of Lucy when they first met. That same yearning in her, driving her. He offers her his hand, still bloody from trading blows with Harkness.

"Harry." Why not? He used the moniker precisely because humans find it safe, reassuring. Friendly.

She grips his hand—strength, alien warmth.

"Astrid." Her eyes widen and her lips part as he bends over and brushes her knuckles with a reverential kiss, but she's not so easily distracted. "I don't think you should move about until the Doctor has a look at you."

"He's not that kind of doctor," the Master tells her, whispering as though this is the best gossip. "That's just his name."

"Oh."

Did that news take the Doctor down a peg in her estimation? Hard to say.

They aren't in flight. The Master glances back at the doors. One stands slightly ajar, the _Titanic_ still beyond.

"Almost a nasty accident there." He lets Astrid help him up, leaning on her more than he needs to. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Yes. Oh, but not by the impact. The Heavenly Host attacked everyone in sight, until the Doctor managed to deactivate their haloes."

Spend few days with the Doctor and statements like that no longer even surprise you. The Master acknowledges the information, captures Astrid's hand lightly in his once more, and turns his attention to the noisy lover's tiff on the far side of the console. He's gratified to understand that it's all about him.

It's almost twenty seconds before they realise—Harkness first, the Doctor following his uneasy glance a moment later—that they're being watched. A moment after that, they notice that he has Astrid by the hand.

He smiles at them.

They don't know what to do. They can't believe they've allowed this to happen. They're both afraid that he's going to break this little human in half before they can charge to her rescue.

Perfect.

"Astrid," the Doctor says, carefully. The Master doubts he even knew the woman had slipped aboard. "It's safe outside, now. The crew have everything under control."

"But your crew were hurt." She gives his hand a protective squeeze, including the bloodied Harkness in her concern with a wave of her hand.

His _crew_. Wonderful!

"We aren't the Doctor's crew, my dear. I'm his captive, and that's his boyfriend. He thinks that I'm going to threaten to harm you, and try to use that engineer my escape. Look."

Astrid does look, from him to the Doctor and back again, worried as she comprehends that nobody is joking. She tries to pull her hand away, less hostile than uncertain. The Master tightens his grip. Just enough to stop her pulling free. He could crush her bones to splinters, but he doesn't. He keeps his expression mild—keeps steady eye contact with the Doctor, who's forgotten all about Harkness.

_'Let her go.'_

_'Shan't.'_

Oh, he means the woman no harm. She's no part in this, though it's a thrill to feel her pulse rate jump—prey belatedly alert to the nearness of the predator. He just needs to send the Doctor a message. To feel him powerless and rooted to the spot. To take a measure of how far he'd need to push this scenario before the Doctor begged for the woman's life, or Harkness used the trigger device again. His money is on Harkness, and sooner rather than later, however much the Doctor's been moralising at him.

Oh well.

The Master turns to Astrid, restoring his Harold Saxon smile. This time she scans his eyes to find the lie, startled, not sure what to believe.

"You'd better go." His body remembers how to do this—to flirt with warm and open attentiveness, the way he did with Lucy. With a nation. "You've had a very lucky escape." Gallant, he guides her towards the doors, smooth as a dance.

He shuts the door behind her, before she can ruin his moment by protesting or looking for goodbyes.

The Doctor stares at him, his ashen face beginning to colour again.

_'Why?'_

_'Because I can.'_

That's always the reason. The only reason. The Doctor needs to learn to listen.

 

_You've learned to interpret the aura of discontent that occasionally surrounds him in his own home, clouding the sunlight of him. You've learned to read the pattern, and it has nothing to do with how well you know him—his face, his psychic signature, his ingrained doubts and habits. It's simply observation. Patterns. Movement. Sounds. Silences. Timing. The rigid timing of a Gallifreyan female's unsuppressed reproductive biology, in this case._

_"You've just copulated with her."_

_His library. Two chairs. The love you share for the written and printed word, so tactile and satisfying compared to a data readout. He stops pretending to be reading and folds his arms while he **looks** at you. _

_"Is there **any** kind of filter in place between your brain and your mouth?" _

_It's not the first time he's asked._

_You didn't mean to upset him. But, no. You haven't upset him. He arrived here upset, disturbed, and he wanted you to notice. How could you not?_

_"She could get a child in a laboratory." It's the firstborn that matters. The first mating. The symbolism of two bloodlines uniting to create a new future. A new furrow ploughed, a tangible and irreversible joining. The physical possession of one another (as if she could ever possess him, when you already have, in every way that matters.) All symbolism is base and barbaric, if you dig deeply enough. "She only needs your genetic contribution."_

_"Is that what you did?" Defensive, he eyes your abdomen, then fixes you with that troubled blue stare of his. "Build your daughter in a laboratory?"_

_"I'm not the one moping in a corner about how I chose to procreate." No, you were entirely indifferent to the means, focused on the desired result—on genetically sound progeny. Why isn't he? He ought to be. "Don't change the subject. What's the matter? Does she organise you while you're doing it?" His wife makes lists. Things that need to be done. She does them in order, and can never accept that her spouse habitually does whatever seems like a good idea at the time. **'A little to the left. Now faster. Now hurry up and fertilise me, I have three meetings this afternoon.'** You hide your smirk, your thought, but not well enough, or fast enough. _

_He gets up and crosses the room, tossing down his book, a swift flurry of protest and annoyance at your disrespect. His house is built from wood, light and airy with huge windows that turn every available view of these steeply sloping lands into a framed work of art. He stares out at one now, folding his arms again, as though he can fold his unhappiness away inside and trap it._

_You'd go to him to offer solace, but getting up out of the chair, unassisted, would involve an ungainly struggle with your displaced centre of gravity. It's a scene you'd prefer that he doesn't witness unless absolutely necessary._

_"Come here." You pat the arm of your chair. "I wasn't teasing."_

_You think that he won't obey you, but he does. Squats beside your left leg and touches your hand in forgiveness, apology. You smile at him, and lean over to whisper,_

_"We could copulate. With each other. Or does the female form not interest you?"_

_He almost tips over onto his backside, the clumsy thing. Grabs the scrolling arm of your chair and steadies himself, instead. You couldn't do this to him before—knock him over with some smiling impropriety. It's a power that you quite enjoy wielding, one-sided and ill-defined. He's not indifferent to this new form of yours, nor this female body of yours to him, but for him there is the added lure of the unknown. Though you've never coupled, you already know him inside out, mind and body both, while this second body of yours has secret places. Mysteries he might like to explore. It's a new slant on your lifelong compatibility, one that deeply amuses you and mildly embarrasses him. It more than makes up for, since your regeneration, having to stand on a stool to reach the top shelf where he keeps the best books._

_He stoically pretends that you didn't just offer to open your legs for him, or ask him what it's like to lie with his passionless mate. He reaches for your waist. For a moment, you think that he's going to pillow his head on your abdomen._

_"How is she?"_

_His warmth towards your daughter engulfs you both, flowing ahead of his physical touch, brushing aside the incipient quarrel. You bask, wrapping yourself around his mind in turn, lacing the fingers of your left hand through his right in easy, long-accustomed affection. You still fit together, effortlessly._

_"She's well. She's strong." You bring your joined hands to your abdomen and cradle your daughter in security—two minds knit together with one purpose, welcoming her in safety to the growing awareness of herself._

_Later, when he's busy with his official family, you shut yourself away in your room and go over the evidence of Borusa's betrayal one more time. You stare at the holographic face of your murderer, as much insulted by his insignificance as you are angered by his violence against you. He's nothing. A guard, a mere hired hand. It's almost unreasonable to kill him when he was only Borusa's instrument. But you can't touch Borusa himself, not yet. You can't prove—not prove, absolutely—that he personally sanctioned your elimination. And you don't know why he'd do such a thing. You have to know._

_It will be centuries before you learn the reason, and by then you won't care. Under the circumstances, neither will he._

_Now it's time to decide on your method of revenge. You already have the means—the knife they pulled out of your dying body as you struggled to regenerate. It has to be that weapon, so that Borusa will know. Now you need a plan. An opportunity. Nobody must be able to prove your involvement in the death._

_You don't shield your daughter from this careful process; these cool, slow thoughts of death. She needs to know what world is waiting for her, and how to survive in it._

 

Unprotesting, he follows the Doctor into the corridors. Harkness still has murder in his eyes, but he's gone silent, pulling apart the central console to repair the damaged circuits. It's good to see the Doctor's geniality crumble—his disgust, his free-flowing outrage. If he's no less angry at the Master than at the human, that's a trade-off that the Master can live with.

The Doctor is agitated, stalking stiffly ahead of him, back straight, fists balled at his sides. Harkness is right. The formal attire suits him well, complements and outlines his spare frame instead of concealing it. He's always concealing himself.

A door—one that wasn't there when he explored the ship. The Doctor stops, opens it into the domed room beyond.

"Zero room," he says, unnecessarily. "Stay here."

Fear. The Master pushes it down, refuses to acknowledge it, and anger takes its place by an old, familiar process.

"I won't be caged again."

"No." Such ice in his voice, those sincere brown eyes fixed on a point just a fraction past the Master's left ear. He demonstrates that the door has no locking mechanism—just a door seal secure enough to preserve the integrity of the zero room once closed.

The Master rocks his weight back onto his heel, assessing the situation. He has no specific objection to the room, other than that the Doctor wants him to be in it. The zero room is a necessary next step in their study of his torment. He can make use of it.

"And I'll obey you because…?"

A twitch. Cheek, fingers. The Doctor is completely in control of himself, every nerve, but his eyes always betray him. He's been provoked beyond endurance. He's still trying to be kind, reasonable. Trying to be the Doctor, in fact. The Master's always known that he has to try, that it costs him to show the world this mild and compassionate face every waking moment, but here, now, the breaking strain is visible. He can almost see what it would take to fracture the pretence—almost see where to place the final straw.

"Please," the Doctor says, tautly. "Please, just…"

He could threaten to withdraw his assistance—his contribution to the psychic shield that's keeping the drums at bay. That's leverage. Why doesn't he use it? He should use it, so why is he begging instead?!

"I could have broken the girl's neck just to see the look on your face. I didn't." Never intended to, actually.

"I know."

"I could have reduced Harkness to a drooling husk." That was tempting, but not expedient.

"I know."

The Doctor doesn't want to talk. There are times when he'll be drawn—reveal more than he ought to, more than he means to. This isn't one of them. He falls back on empty courtesy and swallows all that blazing rage down inside. He could conquer the universe with it. Destroy everything if he ever unleashed it. Does he ever want to? Just secretly, just his own guilty, nocturnal admission—does he know his own power, and tremble at how good it feels?

"Why, then?" The Master indicates the zero room, the unsecured door.

 _'Because I can.'_ The words hang between them, unspoken. Barely thought. The Doctor still tries to snatch them back.

"Because you helped save those people. Saved the Earth."

"That counts?"

"Yes."

"For what?"

"I don't know. Something."

If he controls his expression any harder, he's probably going to snap his own jaw. The Master smiles. It's not calculated, this time; just a reaction, immediate and clean. The Doctor begins an urgent and thorough study of the floor at his feet.

"This is killing you." Observation. Unweighted by emotion, until he catches the Doctor's spilling thought—another one that breaks free from his tight self-restraint. A thought with a will of its own, in search of catharsis.

_'But it's saving you.'_

 

_You'll have no-one else here, no-one else near your daughter's first impression of her world. You know that he has an expert standing by in case of mishap—a healer from among the tribe of grubby Outsiders who embrace him as their own and who haven't forgotten how to function as placental mammals, but you won't have her in the room. Only him, watching you patiently while you pace the floor, and unsure about where to put his hands whenever you sit beside him on the bed to rest. He isn't sure that you want comfort. Neither are you._

_"Does it hurt?"_

_You're flattered that he can't tell. You know how strong you are, but you want him to know it too. Never to doubt it, in case it causes him to doubt you._

_"Yes." So that he feels less lost, and to include him in what must seem a tediously uneventful process from his vantage point, you guide his right hand to the small of your back. He rubs, obediently. It doesn't help. And it does._

_"She doesn't do this. My wife," he adds, awkwardly and unnecessarily._

_"Why would she? She's not completely insane. Only insane enough to join with you."_

_"Why would **you**?" _

_What's happened to his sense of humour?_

_A fresh contraction of your uterine muscles gives you a good enough reason not to answer him. You're gripping his other hand tightly before it's over. You can manage the pain, silent, unaided, but the nearness of him feels… necessary. You can trust no-one else with these vulnerable hours of your life, and although you cultivate solitude, self-reliance, there's always a space left for him._

_The Outsider has brought a stool with her—a squat thing with an orifice in the seat. It will support your weight while you push your daughter out into his waiting hands. It seems so crude, so primitive, that you laugh out loud as you watch yourself straining on the thing. You laugh until you cry. He panics, then, but you catch at his shoulder to stop him bolting for the door and dragging his healer in here to deal with you. You watch him through tears that you cannot hold back, and stroke his cheek, and smile until he understands that you're still you and still whole—just tired, just triumphant, just laughing because you look so ridiculous with your stained gown bunched up around your thighs on this silly little wooden stool with the hole in it, your exposed parts hairy, your small, bare feet grinding crossly against the floor whenever you need to bear down. If he ever mentions **any** of this, afterwards, you'll never forgive him. _

_A few minutes later, shaking with emotion but wrapping the room in a shield of soothing, psychic stability, he lifts your daughter into your arms—slippery, blood-warm, squalling her tiny outrage at the shock of her own arrival. You stare at your child, shivering, your universe shrinking to a pinpoint that focuses on that blank slate of a mind, that wrinkled and squashed little body. For the first time, you know what it is to be afraid on another being's behalf._

_He pulls the covers from the bed and wraps them around your shoulders, blurting words at you. You don't need to hear them, pay attention to them; you can feel them. You weren't sure that you'd ever feel this close to him again. You close your eyes and rest in his arms for a little while, safe._

_Two days later, when he thinks you're sleeping upstairs in his quaint wooden house, while he's transfixed by the pretty newborn you've just placed into his arms and the hungry welcome of her questioning mind, you teleport to the Citadel. You waste no time—your plan is efficient. You slide the slender knife into your assassin's hearts, one after the other, swift and clean, and make the world just that fraction safer for your daughter to inhabit._

_Killing a living being is an awful lot easier than giving one life. And far less messy._

 

The Doctor follows him inside the new zero room, a bleak slouch with his hands in his trouser pockets. Just inside, he lets himself fall back to lean against the wall, and crosses his feet at the ankles.

The Master's never seen him look so miserable or defeated, and it hasn't been for want of effort on his part. Eyes downcast, the Doctor tugs his black bowtie undone and leaves it to hang. He unfastens his starched collar, two buttons, then lets his hands fall limp at his sides.

"What would you do," he asks dully, "If I let you go?"

Unexpected. What's his game?

"Torchwood means that much to you? You'd consider turning me loose to protect him?"

Headshake. Just slight. Pained, as though the effort of continued communication is overwhelming him.

"I've had enough, that's all. I'm tired, I'm done. You can win, if there's any possible way that leaves most of the universe standing. Any way that lets me sleep at night. Find me one, and you can go. I can't do this anymore."

What?

It has to be a trick, an angle—some moralistic lesson in progress. Except that the Master can feel the simple sincerity of the statement, here in this room where thought is uninterrupted by external influences. He can feel the Doctor's defeat, and the deep depression that's rolling over him, on the way to numbing him. But defeat should burn; he should squirm and fight! He isn't meant to tip his king, to concede the game. It's beneath him!

The Doctor catches that thought, that image of his white king toppling onto the chequerboard. Slowly, he lifts his gaze from the floor. His attempt at a smile is desolate.

"One of us has to go first, or this only ends one way. _Again._ I don't want that. I never did, and you know why." He shoves himself away from the wall and turns to go. Hesitates, the door halfway open, and turns his head a fraction. Speaks clearly, his voice stronger than before, but he can hear the effort. "Thank you for not hurting Astrid. She was kind."

That can't be allowed to stand as the last word—that dangling bait of feeble reconciliation.

"I didn't do it to make you happy," the Master manages to sneer, just before he's gone.

It's very unsatisfying.


	19. Inertia

_Day one. Sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, the sky reddened into artificial beauty by the smoke of destruction that's rising from every continent on Planet Earth._

_The Master assigns two large guards, who stand blank-faced at the Doctor's elbows and keep him from crumpling to the ground. They make him stand and watch this planet he loves burning—news reports, CCTV, camera phones, footage from the Toclafane themselves. Anything the Master can find, combined on an array of monitors set up just for the Doctor's instruction._

_The Doctor turns inward, instead. They can make him stand facing the horror show, but they can't make him really look. Really see, or believe it._

_Gradually, as the Earth loses the one-sided fight, the live news, CCTV and phone feeds vanish from the picture, diluting the impact of the show. The Master commandeers TV transmitters and media satellites, hooks them up to Archangel for global coverage, and sends his old followers and his new collaborators out with news cameras, looking for highlights._

_The paradox is worse than what's happening below. This close to the paradox machine, the Doctor can feel the strain of the new reality. Feels sick, feels the irreconcilable pull of two different futures. The Master parades up and down, making pronouncements, dishing out rewards and brutality with equal enthusiasm, but the Doctor knows him. The face doesn't matter. He can see the moments, slipped between the seconds, when that grinning mask slips; the rictus of terror just beneath the triumph. Time is screaming, a vast and complex causal nexus centred on Earth is collapsing into negation right where they stand, and the Master isn't immune._

_Eventually, the Doctor's knees buckle; frail body giving way to simple fatigue in a sickening rush, slumped in the unsympathetic grasp of his silent bodyguards. The Master spares him a look of pure disgust before ordering the guards to park him in a leather executive chair, still firmly facing the screens._

_The Master never could stand to be around someone in an advanced state of decay, the taint of unstoppable mortality, so you have to wonder why he's done this to the Doctor; what point he's trying to prove. And to whom._

 

 

The Doctor tries walking to clear his head, but the queasy sense of defeat follows him wherever he tries to go. As it turns out, wherever he tries to go ends up being the medical corridors, because the TARDIS won't let him go anywhere else. When he loses his temper, pushes back against her dutiful concern, there's a twisting jolt, a wrench of on-the-fly dimensional re-engineering, and the TARDIS propels him through the med-bay doors and puts him where he ought to be. Then she deletes the doors.

His native language wasn't exactly designed for swearing in, it takes too long, but the Doctor gives it a really good try. Then he gives in, because there's not much else he _can_ do. The TARDIS withdraws herself from their psychic negotiation—a neat and complete retreat from his conscious connection with her. Point made.

Being married was a bit like this.

"Fine!" He fires up the main diagnostic scanner, petulant with every switch, then throws himself onto the bed underneath it. "Go on then! Do your worst."

He's a good couple of hundred years overdue for a routine medical. It's ages since he disabled the automated systems designed to keep a TARDIS crew in peak health for the duration of a mission; a Gallifreyan nanny-state in a box. He knows when he's well, knows when he's injured or ill, and he knows when he needs to regenerate if he plans on staying alive. What else is there? Waste of time.

She's never had a problem with it, until now. Some dormant line of code in the life-support subroutines, something he missed? Either that, or she's unable to interpret what she senses from him—his turmoil and his change in behaviour. It's in the best interests of a TARDIS to keep her pilot and their symbiotic link intact. He's not sure they're meant to be able to march said pilot to the scanner under duress, though. That might just be her.

The Doctor closes his eyes under the lights of the scanner. It's a deep scan, uncomfortable—a burn in his bones. He grits his teeth and waits for it to be over; one slow, excessively thorough sweep from head to feet that leaves him slightly numb in its wake. Then he folds his arms and looks pointedly around him.

"Finished?"

Extremities tingling with a rush of blood, the Doctor swings his legs over the side of the bed and faces the nearest bank of screens. With the readings handed off to the medical computers, he's in the hands of programmers who probably died before he was born. He's never upgraded those systems; never needed to. One of them pastes a demand for a blood sample across the screen.

He really hopes the TARDIS is going to let him out of here when this is over. Maybe it wasn't too clever, giving her the idea of rooms without doors. He supplies a finger-prick sample of his blood and slots it into the analysis machine.

"Anything else? Some bogies? Quick biopsy of my brain? A toe?"

He's snarking at a subroutine.

Rubbing his face, the Doctor walks the length of the room and back, clawing his patience back together with deep breaths as he goes. He's not blind to the problem—just sure that it's nothing the diagnostic systems will find in the data from a physical scan. His problem is situational, is the Master, is the past twelve months, maybe the last seven hundred years, and nothing the scan results tell him can help change that.

Besides, he already knows what they're going to tell him. That's why his expression doesn't change when the screen lights up with a summary of the results, then overlays it with a recommendation in deep, ominous red.

_Return to the Citadel for medical assistance._

"Yeah." It's the twist of a rusty knife between his hearts, all the same. He swallows, turning away, never willing to look too closely at what his grief and guilt have hardened into. He carries it around, just there in his chest—the pain of what he's done. The impotent anger about _why_. "Rub it in, go on."

The TARDIS knows that Gallifrey is gone, even if this isolated computer hasn't got the newsflash. Not her fault, any more than it's her fault that he can't bear it, right at this moment. That reminder. Tears wash away the image on the screen and he paces up and down the room again, scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until the tears stop prickling up out of nowhere. His throat tightens, emotion trying to force its way to release, and he's going to wreck this room with bare hands if she doesn't let him out of here and let him leave this building scream behind him.

Reaching out with his mind, he finds the indefinable sense of his ship's self-awareness. He meets a throbbing warmth, a tickling and squirming sense of urgency. Emotions don't translate between their states of consciousness, not really, not directly, but he's learned a few things by simple observation. Anything short of stillness in the TARDIS indicates what he'd define as agitation, excitement. This flutter against his mind reads like panic.

"You do understand, don't you?" His voice warps itself around the hard knot in his throat—sounds horrible, grating. "Gallifrey is gone. All gone. We can never go back. This is all there is. You, me, and him."

She knows, but it's possible that she doesn't understand the way in which the fact is significant to him, or how it's relevant to the computer's blind recommendation. Even Gallifrey, the anchor point, is a needle in the haystack of spacetime to a TARDIS. Gallifrey there, Gallifrey gone—must all be the same thing, to her. But she's wrapping him in a fragile tenderness that feels like sorrow and commiseration; an understanding of the facts too absolute, too blind, ever to encompass forgiveness or blame.

"I'm sorry," he says, anyway, shaking in his shoes. "But, look, I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

The TARDIS puts the doors back and lets him run.

 

 

_Night one. The **Valiant** stands down, allowing the life-support to revert to power-saving, diurnal norms. The Master spends a while standing in front of one of the inset lights on the command deck, watching it fade to one-third power, a peaceful smile on his face. _

_His wife comes in, her armed escort deferential. Hard to make a show of holding open an automatic door for a lady, but if they could, they would. She ignores them and goes to the Master's side. Hand on his back, sliding down and around his waist; his arm enfolding her in practiced reciprocation, a flick of the fingers waving the guards away._

_"It's almost romantic," Mrs Saxon says, admiring the subdued lighting effect. The Master's left hand slides on down to her left buttock and stays there. He's barely paying attention to her, just touching her because she's there._

_The Doctor tries not to stare. He's spent the past hours feeling out the capabilities of his changed body, and finding nothing that's of any practical use to him. He can barely stand, and can only shuffle a few steps unassisted before his lower limbs give up the fight. His major organs are compensating for the damage while his subconscious mind tackles the pain. He might as well be shackled to the wall. No. He'd be better placed to act if he was **only** shackled to the wall! _

_"Lucy!" The Master, snapping out of his reverie, spins her around, catches her hand and leads her over to where the Doctor sits. The screens in front of him all show static, now. "You haven't been properly introduced. This is the Doctor. He saves people. He saves the world. What do you think?"_

_He hasn't tried to speak all day. Now, the Doctor looks Lucy in the eye and says, gently,_

_"Hello, Mrs Saxon."_

_The woman looks perplexed, as if the conversation just deviated from a script she's learned so well that she can't remember how to move forward without it._

_"Doctor," she manages, the manners of her upbringing taking over. "Hello."_

_The Master scowls down at him and clamps Lucy to his side with one arm. The Doctor could almost laugh, recognising the man's stupid dilemma; clearly, someone here should speak only when they're spoken to. He just can't decide whether the human wife or the captive Time Lord should take the honours._

_The Doctor does what he can with the opportunity, studying what he sees and senses, trying to determine whether Lucy Saxon is fully or partially under the Master's hypnotic control, a willing acolyte, or even—his mind tries to take a five-hundred mile detour around the idea—a loving and devoted spouse. She reads as neutral, so completely neutral that he can make nothing of her at all; can't get a foothold on understanding._

_Seeing the jealous way the Master touches her, the Doctor already pities her._

 

 

Some things you can't run away from. The Doctor keeps moving, but one unwanted thought jostles into place after another, chasing him wherever he goes. He can hear Astrid's bones cracking—see the Master squeezing and squeezing her hand until she's on her knees, mouth open in a scream she doesn't have the breath for. A moment later, he'll see the split second of shock on her face before the Master wrenches her head around, snapping her neck. Then how it really happened, complete with the second-hand taste of his screaming anger at Jack—beyond the rational, over the horizon into hysteria, and only the least tiny bit of it because he'd found Jack holding that gun.

He doesn't know how to fix this mess. Give him a planet thirty minutes away from self-destruction and he's in his element—he's flying, he's winning. But this? This makes him dwell on things he shouldn't, and say them as well. Might as well have offered up a major artery, back there, as confess to the Master that he can't handle this situation.

Astrid dies in front of him, half a dozen different ways, but it's still the thought of the bones in her trusting hand snapping that makes sweat bead across his upper lip and the shudder run down his spine. He feels ill—ill with failure, defeat, and the kind of doubt he thought he'd left behind him a few hundred years ago, and all the time he's walking, Astrid's innocent bones are breaking in the Master's merciless grasp.

The Master did that and worse to people, this past year. Sometimes it was to punish someone who'd crossed him; sometimes to make a point to somebody else. Sometimes just because he could. There's something about the sound of bone breaking inside a flesh shell—peculiar, dreadful, that deep, sickening crack—that stays with you long after the fact. For a while, it looked like the Master meant to break every bone in Jack's body, one by one; a systematic, dispassionate test of his ability to heal from trauma, neatly combined with a test of his ability to resist interrogation and torture. The Doctor could never decide what was worse—seeing it happen, the breaking bones and the pain, or seeing how inured Jack has become to those things. Inured, hardened, shockingly self-disciplined for a human being, but Jack's not immune. His nightmares prove that.

The Master became distracted by how it felt to make Jack die. You'd have called that a mercy, at first; until the Master ran out of clean, quick ways to kill and decided to demonstrate his artistry instead.

Another way of making his point.

You'd think he had a better one, with his brilliance, or that he could construct one with his easy sophistry, but it's always the same: _You lose. I win._

It's taken the Doctor several hundred years, plus one interminable year more, to realise that he and the Master… they aren't even having the same argument. Haven't been for a very long time.

He doesn't know what to do about that. He doesn't even know where to start.

 

 

_Day three. Lunch in the conference room. The Master tucks a napkin into the collar of the Doctor's shirt, and has Lucy cut up his food so he can manage with a spoon._

_The Master talks throughout the meal—talks about old times on Gallifrey, like nothing's changed. The Doctor says nothing and eats nothing, although he's hungry and burning to speak his mind. The Master's madness is a powder keg. Any spark will do, and while the Doctor wouldn't normally hesitate to strike a random match and hope for the best, Martha's counting on him to protect her family. That puts him at a disadvantage._

_"Master," the Doctor says, over an untouched bowl of sherry trifle. Surprise registers for a moment, surprise that he's broken his silence, then the Master blanks his expression—waits with an eyebrow coolly lifted to see what he has to say. "How did you manage it? Archangel? Hiding in plain sight?" He manages to weave a note of grudging admiration into the question—an easy, barbed lure for the other man's ego._

_But the Master has learned better. The Doctor watches him resist his impulse to gloat, to preen, to prove his superiority; wonders when and where his oldest adversary learned this inconvenient self-restraint._

_"I'd tell you," the Master says, switching tracks, smoothing himself out, giving his attention back to the dessert. Harold Saxon is habit; an autopilot persona that's become easy with wear. A dangerously good hiding place. "But then I'd have to kill you."_

 

 

Without choosing a destination, the Doctor finds himself at the top of a plunging spiral staircase. A short metal landing and a safety rail overlook a drop that looks bottomless in the dark, but there's an occasional glint of metal further away and further down, where staircases intersect or avoid one another. The bright openings of lit passages dot the walls of the giant stairwell like far-off, festive lights. If the TARDIS could ever be likened to a bipedal being (which would be absurd), then in her current configuration, this would be her spine.

The Doctor used to come here, after the War, and just sit looking into the darkness. Peace, of a sort, in the stillness and solitude. An escape even from himself, when he couldn't face Rose or trust himself to be rational or kind, or to keep himself from swan-diving back across his own timeline and trying to snatch Gallifrey from the flames.

He brought his pain here just to be alone with it, until Jack found the place. The TARDIS must've snitched on him—led Jack here as easily as she shepherded the Doctor to the medical bay today. He's never been back since; no use for a hiding place that someone else can find. He's never tasted the memories that wait here, the past intersecting with the now. Like there—he places his left hand on the grab rail and leans over the darkness—where he braced himself; a convulsive slip of the hand, a steadying grasp, when Jack yanked his trousers down around his thighs. If he stretches his thoughts, reaches for the space where his memories and his temporal senses intersect, he can almost see a shadow of himself on the rail.

Where he stands now, Jack knelt—insistent, decisive, his plain human desires on the back foot while some subtler, protective instinct took the lead for both of them. The Doctor could feel it on Jack during the intimacy of lips on flesh; well enough to recognise it as the urge that drove anyone, any species, to draw a line in the sand and say 'I stand here, guarding what lies beyond.' All the best humans have that, _do_ that, but you can't picture Lethbridge-Stewart going down on his knees just to say, 'I won't let you fall, lean on me, take my strength.'

Or maybe you can. Jack probably can. The Doctor's mind refuses to go any further along that road, and he blows out his cheeks, peering down into the darkness. Once his eyes adjust, the far-off lights remind him of constellations in a night sky. A thread of lightness whispers its way through the bleakness that's smothered his chest since he got back from the _Titanic_. Simple pleasure because he likes the view, and relief because he's found the lifeline back to a calm mind.

He sits, slotting his legs between the wrought-metal twist uprights of the safety rail, hugging a pillar and resting his forehead against it. His black canvas shoes with their white rubber sole make a pleasing effect, foreshortened against the dizzying emptiness below, so he kicks his feet, watching them, and lets the TARDIS soothe him.

 

 

_Night three. He's shaken awake with rough hands, his time sense momentarily flailing for purchase inside the Master's paradox. Then it finds its level, the new normal, and the Doctor knows that it's quarter past two in the morning._

_One of his two bodyguards—he calls this one Steve and the other Sam, in the absence of any input from them—gestures brusquely towards a black plush dressing gown. He must've brought that with him, because the Doctor hasn't seen it before. When he pulls himself into a sitting position on the low cot, grasps the robe and pulls it across from the empty wheelchair to his lap, he sees other things underneath it. Red pyjamas, about his size. A pair of sensible black slippers. Until now, he's been sent to bed in his vest and underpants._

_He hopes this doesn't mean that the Master's switching from the stick to the carrot._

_"Excuse me, please," the Doctor says to Steve the guard. He can still dress himself, with a lot of heavy breathing and painful stretching. Steve clearly has his orders, and turns his back with a derisive flare of hairy nostrils rather than leave the room. "Where's your friend, then?" Stripping naked, the Doctor feels more exposed than the situation calls for. He doesn't know his own body, any more—feels alien to himself. "Where's old Sam?" No reply. They're not allowed to speak to him, and that's probably on pain of death. "I hope your boss hasn't killed him." He means that. Just about. It's not just the Archangel signal with these two; they're practically automatons, and they're effective guards because of it. Underneath the hypnosis, they might be decent blokes. You never know._

_The clothing is more practical than he feared—a stretchy, warm, cellulose blend that pulls into place, without buttons to slow him down. He struggles, half sitting on the bunk, to get the soft trousers up past his knees without losing his balance, but he's at least decent when Steve runs out of patience and turns around._

_"I take it he wants to see me? Doubt he sent you just to watch a striptease. Mind you, he's a raving lunatic at the moment, so who knows?"_

_He gets nowhere with Steve or Sam, talking at them. Doesn't ruffle them, rile them, make them think, distract them, misdirect them or undermine them. Nothing. He should probably stop wasting his breath, but he can hardly help himself, even if his breath comes short and leaves him dizzy. He smiles, friendly, pulling the soft black robe around himself._

_Steve points to the wheelchair. Grabs his elbow to steady him, then lets him go as he drops into the seat. That hurts, jarring his bones, but the Doctor doesn't make a sound._

 

 

Jack finds him, or possibly the TARDIS gives him no other choice. The Doctor catches the sound of a frustrated sigh, a hesitation in the footsteps, before Jack decides to make the best of it and comes through the door onto the narrow landing.

"Not stalking you," he says, firmly. "She wouldn't let me get to the coffee machine."

The Doctor nods, supposition vindicated. He's been alone here for six hours and seventeen minutes, so it could've been worse. There's been time to think.

Jack sits down, sliding his body down the wall in front of the doorway, just like he did that other time. The Doctor wants him just to sit there, like he did then, but that's not fair. Jack deserves better.

"That, um." His voice has gone rusty on him, sitting here in silence. The Doctor clears his throat and takes a deeper breath, trying to sound the way he usually sounds. Whatever that is. "That was the shouting bit, then." Surprised, Jack ducks his head to hide a helpless grin of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor watches him stretch his legs out in front of him, settling in. "What did you say came after that?"

"I didn't." Jack folds his arms, making an effort to put some life into his voice, even though he really sounds the way the Doctor feels. Deadened. Defeated. "We can refuse to talk to each other for a couple of weeks and go around slamming doors and glaring. But we kind of blew that already by having this conversation, so…"

It's the Doctor's turn to smile, to hide it by ducking his head, shy of the reconciliation.

"What else?"

"You tell me that you 'need some space', and I go get blind drunk before finding a new place to live."

"Right," the Doctor says, slowly, bemused. There's a reason he's never paid much attention to humans and their mating rituals.

"Or we have spectacular make-up sex. I'm talking _fireworks_." Jack makes a weary gesture with his hand. "But I really do have a killer headache right now, so…"

Seriousness settles back over them—mutual acknowledgement that this isn't a game.

"Where did you get the gun?"

"Torchwood."

The Doctor can't stop the sarcastic little smile from taking over his face. Bitter. Of course Torchwood.

"I'll try harder, Jack. I really will. But no guns. Not on my ship. Not ever."

"I hit him with the blunt-instrument end," Jack snaps, but there's no energy left in the argument. They've blown themselves out, or worn each other out. "I could've finished him."

"Why didn't you?"

 _For you,_ Jack thinks, but presumably doesn't mean to broadcast that. What he says is,

"Because there was another way."

"There always is."

"No. Not with him. He has to be _stopped_. Contained."

Same argument. Cooler heads. No answers.

They can't sit here forever, and he can't avoid facing the Master forever. They have to go back. Make this work. The knot twists a bit tighter in the Doctor's chest.

"What if it's forever, Jack?" He breathes the words, hardly moving his lips, something he hardly dares to think, let alone say. "What do I do if this is forever?"

In the unlikely event that Jack has an answer to that question, he keeps it to himself.

 

 

_The Master is waiting for him on the otherwise deserted command deck. He has the look of a long day about him, with dark stubble along his jawline and the top buttons of his white shirt undone beneath a carelessly loosened tie. His jacket lies over the back of a chair at the long table, while the Master himself chooses to lounge against a wall._

_"Out," he says, quietly. Steve goes._

_The Master folds his arms. He's calm, at least. Perhaps they can talk, really talk. There has to be some hope that he's capable of seeing reason, or if not reason then seeing his own advantage._

_They eye one another, the Master wary, the Doctor weary._

_"Hi," says the madman, flashing a little wave and the parody of a bright smile, as if they're only just now seeing one another after the long absence._

_The Doctor doesn't waste his breath. Just waits, studying the Master's new body. You'd think he chose it with this plan in mind—sculped his entire regeneration to fit this slick plan of his. Whatever that is. The Doctor needs to find that out, but he's tired, and the Master has hostages. He keeps silent. Notices everything, from the Master's bespoke tailoring to the fact that the Valiant can hold station on autopilot, the controls unattended. Either that or there's a secondary control room somewhere, and this entire suite is for show._

_At last, the Master stops leaning against the wall and comes towards him. Stands over him, pressing the petty advantage of relative height. He smells of his wife, the lingering hint of her perfume and beauty products mingling on his clothing. Human hormones, and the scattered, chaotic touch of her blind psychic aura. She's clinging to him, even though she isn't here._

_"Harkness," the Master says, slowly cracking his knuckles. A restless gesture, escaped from his usual rigid self-control. The Doctor notes it, uses it to judge how much he favours his right hand over his left. His first body was ambidextrous; her second resentful of having to relearn how to use her own limbs, right-handed like this one. "Are you listening?" He snaps his fingers in the Doctor's face. Right hand._

_"Yes."_

_"Did you know that he's Torchwood?"_

_The shock of that is still fresh, hardly even buried under the mounting pile of bigger problems. Jack. Torchwood. **Jack**._

_"He mentioned it."_

_"I've been watching them. For eighteen months now, I've watched that little team of his scurry about like Cardiff is the centre of the universe." The Master sounds peevish, reluctant—like he'd rather not be saying this, or saying it to the Doctor. But there's nobody else he can have a satisfying conversation with, is there? He never learns that—that if he subjugates everybody in sight, there's nobody left who can truly admire him, respond to him, know how utterly brilliant he's being. "They opened the Rift a little while ago, did you know that?" Rhetorical question. Incredulous; scornful. Humans and their fumbling attempts at temporal manipulation. "On purpose. I wasn't sure there was going to be an Earth left to conquer, but I couldn't intervene. Not without risking my own timeline. Couldn't afford to stop Harkness chasing after you to the end of the universe like a lost puppy, could I?"_

_Belatedly, the Doctor wonders how much that hurt—Jack clinging to the outer shell of the TARDIS for a trip through the time vortex. She must have protected him, must've, or he'd be atoms scattered from one end of history to the other. And still alive. The skin crawls over his spine, and he forces the thought away along with thoughts of Torchwood, and Rose._

_"You took risks with Martha's timeline. It was Martha who drew your attention to the watch."_

_"Risks!" Scoffing, the Master strides over to a chrome drinks trolley and pours himself a short measure of something. The Doctor inhales, finds the molecules in the air. Scotch, the oldest. "The Jones women are sheep. Little Tish really thought she got those jobs on **merit** , I mean, come **on**." Still with his back to the Doctor, the Master tosses back the contents of the glass and pours another measure. Twice as much, this time. "And the mother!" He turns around, then, glass in hand, and there's a glimpse of something wild, some hidden terror, before the mask falls into place. "She's supposed to be the brains of the family, but one whisper in her ear about how naughty you are and she stopped asking questions." _

_"She slapped me," the Doctor says, without meaning to say anything. He hopes Mrs Jones is holding on to that spirit of defiance, wherever they're keeping her now. She'll need all the self-reliance she can get, because he can't help her. The best he can do is avoid putting her in the line of fire._

_The Master comes and stands over him again, slowly swirling the liquid around in his glass._

_"Look at me."_

_The Doctor can't. Literally can't—can't tilt his head back that far, in his current physical condition. Impatient, the Master catches him under the chin and drags it upward, forcing his head back, forcing a hiss of pain past the Doctor's self-control._

_"Sulk all you like, Doctor, but I will have your obedience."_

_**Never,** he thinks, but he can't speak. Contorted, he can't breathe properly. The Master lets go when he opens his mouth to gasp for more air. _

_"Is this you in one hundred years? Look at the state of you."_

_Time Lords age, of course they age, but slower than this. One hundred years? It could be the equivalent of a thousand, for all the Master knows. He can't have calculated the effect of his weapon with any accuracy, any more than Lazarus could control his fountain-of-youth machine. This isn't age—this is damage, plain and simple._

_He shrugs stiff shoulders._

_"Change me back, if it bothers you."_

_The Master scowls at him and walks away. Pours another drink._

_"I prefer it when you're physically incapable of running."_


	20. Half-Life

**Valiant**

Jack begs in the end. He begs for it to stop, and it does stop when the Master lets him die. The last thing Jack sees is the Doctor's face. That moment of selfish relief mixed in with the agony of empathy.

It's day one-hundred and thirty-four.

When he's next aware of anything, Jack's completely alone; he's hanging by his wrists and can't even get his feet under him to brace against the weight. There's pain, but too much to process. Doesn't seem half real, and he'll take that blessing for as long as it lasts. Jack's too exhausted to fight it anyway; too exhausted to worry about what'll happen when he's healed some and has to try sorting himself out.

Outlying areas are the slowest to heal. Jack's dully surprised that the Master isn't here taking notes on the process; watching the way his skin moves over healing internal injuries. Noting how long it takes, what makes Jack hurt the most. But even when he's not here, there are always the cameras. Everywhere. Remotely operated. There's nowhere to hide your face from your Master.

Jack's on display anyway. Sometimes they move him, but mostly he's chained up here in the engine levels, so that most of the workers need to pass by him at some point during the day. The others are allowed, encouraged, to come look at Jack, any time they feel their obedience wavering. For the first week he was down here, Jack had a cardboard sign hung around his neck on a bit of string. _'I tried to escape.'_

Didn't, actually. Tried to rescue the Doctor instead, but what the Master doesn't know he can't use against them. Jack can afford to fold at the first sign of overwhelming odds, and most people can be distracted from his motives by watching him come back alive after they shoot him with a semi-automatic.

Martha's sister comes down every day, even when it's not her day to bring his meal. Today, Jack hopes she won't come at all. He doesn't want to eat or drink, and he doesn't want her seeing what the Master did to him. The evidence on his body is fading, minute by minute, but the room stinks of his blood, his vomit, his god-knows-what. He stinks of the Master's final push in pushing him over the edge. Tish doesn't need to see this.

He begged. It's no comfort that the Doctor's eyes have been pleading with him, for days now, to get it over with, to give the Master what he wants, to make it stop any way he can. Doesn't help that all Jack could see of the Doctor's face was those hurt-filled eyes behind a cumbersome oxygen mask.

Jack isn't ready to concede that they've lost this fight. Not while Martha is still out there somewhere. But the Doctor is sick. What if he dies?

 _Can_ the Doctor die? The Master said he suspended the Doctor's ability to regenerate. Turned him old. Frail.

Jack tries to push against the floor, get some of the weight off his wrists and shoulders, but he can't even feel his feet. He blinks down at the floor, checking he still does have feet.

Check. Two feet. Out of focus. Bare. For a second, Jack's outraged that the bastard took away his shoes.

Blank time, drifting in the pain. Sensation returns to his legs, then his back. Then the pain of taking his whole body weight by the wrists starts to bite, leaving Jack taking tiny, snatched breaths around it. He tries the feet thing again—gets them planted flat against the floor this time, taking a fraction of the pressure off. He yelps out loud, too breathless to properly voice the wave of fire that just tore through his neck and back.

He tries to straighten his legs, lock his knees, but all he can do is to wobble and shake.

Jack breathes. Shuts his eyes and just breathes, giving his body oxygen, calm. It'll all heal. It always does. All he has to do is wait this out.

A few feet away, the camera that faces him head-on makes a discreet whirr as somebody remotely zooms in on him. Jack can't help a lopsided smirk, or the urge to flip the bird in the direction of the audience. Probably just as well that he can't feel his hands. He could do without earning himself any more of the Master's undivided attention for a little while.

He's getting stronger by the time he hears footsteps on the steel deck—rapid, soft, approaching. Tish, the contents of her tray rattling just enough that he can hear it over the noise of the engines.

"Oh, my God," she says, stopping dead. She's still behind the camera, but they might be listening. The Master himself could be listening. Words get punished.

Jack pulls together everything he's got and wraps his hands around the chains. Pulls himself up. Pushes against the floor with his feet, and tries to get his knees on board with the operation. He wobbles, but he's almost up under his own steam before Tish slams the tray down on the floor and runs to help him. She wraps her arms around his torso, cheek against his filth, and lifts.

"Oh, I know," Jack groans, blinded by the fresh hurting. "People just can't keep their hands off me. It's a curse." She smells of carbolic and cookery, all clean and wholesome, and her stubborn grip on him is agony. "Let go, sweetheart," he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears blinding him. "Let me go."

Tish does, backing away uncertainly with her hands still outstretched towards him. His legs hold him. Just. He loosens his grip on the chains, while the pain begins the grinding journey from all-over meaningless to agonisingly specific and relevant. The tendons in his wrists move under his skin, and a previously-dislocated shoulder sorting itself out—that hurts like fucking hell. Sounds like distant butchery. Tish gasps, stares.

"Immortal _and_ irresistible," Jack says through gritted teeth, before she forgets herself and speaks again. "I know, right? Got water?"

Tish nods, her horror at what she's seen here hardening into outrage. She looks more like Martha when she's angry. Older, though not old enough. Not for this. Nobody ever is. Jack watches her eyes while she brings a tin cup of water and holds it up for him.

"Slow," he mutters, stomach griping at the prospect of anything getting in his mouth. "Okay?"

Tish does as he asks, tiny tips of the cup against his cracked lips, just enough to wet his mouth each time. She's uneasy and keeps darting glances behind Jack, or side to side. After a while, after maybe twenty micro-sips of water, Jack realises that she's looking for more security cameras—maybe tracking the pan and tilt of the one way down at the end of the room. When the water's almost gone, she seizes her moment. Her lips barely move as she tells him, whispering,

"Doctor. Infirmary." Her words transmit despair like plague, right into Jack's blood, which suddenly runs cold.

Jack shuts his eyes, twisting away from the cup.

"Thanks," he mutters. Tish fetches the food dish and holds it out so he can see. Leftovers, assorted. Tish hopefully offers a slice of boiled carrot on the end of a fork, but Jack shakes his head, his stomach trying to crawl up his throat. "No." Then, to reassure her, "Maybe tomorrow."

Tish hesitates, then lowers the fork. Jack can feel her vibrating with the pent-up everything she'd like to say and do right now, the outrage and horror on his behalf and her own, but she's smart. She doesn't make another sound. She can wait, just like Jack. 

 

He's never sure whether he's catching micro-naps or just briefly passing out. Jack can last a hell of a long time without sleep, so long as there's a chance to rest. Most of the time, chained here in the guts of the ship, he's left alone. Old mental exercises come back to him from his soldier days; conserving energy, biding his time, and Jack can sink deep into a kind of dreaming without his body forgetting how to stand up. He can rest. Sometimes, for a couple of seconds, it feels like he's gone all the way, until the manacles pull tight or he starts to fall, snatching him awake again. Jack is never going to take a decent bed for granted ever again.

It can't be a good sign that he hasn't seen the Master in forty-eight hours. He's not the type to be satisfied when he drags a plea for mercy out of someone, so he must be busy up there, doing god knows what to the planet below. Jack doesn't know what's going on—only what the Master chooses to brag about when he visits. But he's seen worlds invaded, laid waste. Far in the future, he's seen the Earth after the Daleks tear it apart; radiation, famine and despair. Conquest and destruction is the endgame with the Daleks. Eradication. With the Master, Jack can't believe it's that simple. There's more, he's planning more than he's done already, and he wants the Doctor here to watch it happen.

When things get bad down here, Jack thinks about his team and what they're doing without him. The Master could've had them killed, like he had most of UNIT killed, but he didn't think they mattered enough. Sent them off the grid instead. His mistake. Gwen Cooper was born to be a freedom-fighter. Tosh gets angry when anything gets unfair, and half the time she manages to get even. Owen can disappear right in front of you—blend in, make himself useful, smile like he means it and get on with his job. When he's cornered, he can kill. And Ianto... Okay, he worries about Ianto, because Ianto will be distracted by worrying about him. Nice to be worried about, though, when it's not a work thing—not a problem Jack needs to solve.

He spends plenty of time thinking about Ianto. Missed chances—the ones he ignored and the ones that got away.

Jack's swaying on his feet, about to drift into one of those asleep-unconscious falls, when he hears footsteps. Ahead of him and behind him; unfamiliar. Not either of the Jones women, or any of the maintenance staff in their work boots. Jack identifies the crisp tap-tap of the Master's walk, half covered by the clomping, heavy tread of his goons. More than one. Jack tries to count, but even fight-or-flight can't get him far enough out of his stupor. Damn, but he's tired.

The Master stops a few feet in front of him. A pair of guards come up behind. Jack grips hold of his chains, ready for a fight; like there's anything he can do about it if they try to stab him in the back.

Jack's so tired, it's almost funny.

"Bloodthirsty little guy, aren't you? Back so soon. You realise I could charge good money for this?"

"Be quiet." The Master speaks quietly, himself. Jack hasn't heard that tone of voice before—tries to focus heavy eyes and see the expression that goes with it. "I'm going to ask you questions. You are going to answer them. Clear?" Gloved fingers flex, restless by the Master's sides, then he clasps one hand over the other in front of him. Anyone else, that'd be a tell—nerves, uncertainty. Guilt. With him? Who knows what it means?

"Clear," Jack agrees. A dry spot in the back of his throat catches, makes him cough and gasp for air around the spasm.

"Give him a drink," the Master orders, then walks away while the guards obey him. One guy yanks Jack's head back by the hair and pries his mouth open with salty fingers. The other upends a hip-flask of lukewarm— _Jesus!_ —gin all over Jack's face. Jack splutters and struggles and wants to kill somebody. Not for the first time in his life, he keeps swallowing out of sheer self-preservation, and when he's done coughing and swearing at the goons, the Master comes back over, lip curling in disgust at the sight of him.

"A sip of water would have done. Idiots."

The two men don't react to the rebuke; neither are they visibly alarmed by that waspish tone. Jack's wondered before about the guards in their black military fatigues. It's UNIT kit, but they're not UNIT-trained. Not most of them. They're all big, silent and violent on demand. Not a whole lot of free will going on that Jack can see, though it's hard to be sure; the Master expects his orders to be taken literally and obeyed to the letter. Now he's annoyed, though probably only because Jack now reeks of spirits on top of everything else.

"Good stuff," Jack nods, pretending he's still wheezing from the fumes. His eyes are still watering, trying to wash away the sting of the alcohol. "Hope they're not drinking that on duty."

The Master sighs, adjusting the knot of his black tie.

"I'm not in the mood for your glib remarks."

"Shame. I'm feeling quite glib, today. Possibly even cocky." The alcohol has hit Jack's empty stomach and gone straight to his head in a rush, half pleasant and half queasy. If he pukes, he's aiming for the Master's shoes. "Where's the Doctor? You like it when he watches us." Jack gives that his best, suggestive leer.

The Master looks like he wants to punch Jack in the face. His leather glove creaks, fist tightening.

"Your ability to heal yourself. I'm told that you can share it. Restore another being's life-force. Is that true?"

"Who told you that?"

"I asked you a question."

"And I didn't answer it. What are you gonna do about it, torture me to death?" Jack laughs, shaking the chains above him. He's drunk on the fatigue, if not the spirits, and he feels like he could fly.

The Master backhands him across the face—hard, sharp, precise. Jack's vision goes blood-red and then dark, something cracking in his right cheek. _Shit_ , he's strong. So's the Doctor, come to that; must be a Time Lord thing, but the Doctor doesn't go around hitting people in the face. Jack sways, nearly goes down, but catches the chains in both hands and reminds his body which way is up.

"Is it true?" The Master repeats the question like nothing just happened—like Jack's face and ear aren't going from burning sharp pain to tingling numbness. Blood pools under Jack's tongue, the involuntary bite that let it out already starting to heal closed. Nasty, squirming little feeling when the wound is only superficial. Jack wants to put his hand over his mouth but he can't, so he spits on the floor instead, and doesn't even try for the Master's shoes.

"Sorry," he says, blinking hard. His lips feel weird when he moves them, like a lidocaine injection wearing off. "Forgot the question." Jack wiggles his right index finger in the direction of his face. "Must've had a blow to the head or something."

The black and white blur in front of him gradually resolves itself into the Master, his face pinched with today's custom blend of rage and disgust.

"You're going to stop this, Captain."

"Okay." One thing Jack can always manage under pressure; be infuriating. That's one up-side to being unable to die; no amount of provocation can get him killed. "Stop what?"

"The stories about you go back a long way. Decades of records of your misdeeds." The Master opts to ignore his bloody grin. Stares past him wearing a thoughtful frown. It's such a reasonable expression, seems so unaffected; reminds Jack of how he was taken in by Harold Saxon. That rock-solid competence he projected. All that affability and common sense. A disguise that didn't even hide his face. "Crossing your own timeline, by the way." He tuts, shaking his head; folds his hands behind his back and bounces lightly on his heels. "What would the _Doctor_ say?"

It was the Doctor's fault, so that taunt doesn't even touch Jack. He waits for the Master to go on.

"Every now and again, someone's at death's door, and then... not. Paperwork fudged, everyone looks the other way. Jack Harkness saves the day and nobody quite knows how. Nobody wants to look too closely in case the magic wears off. Any tests that are run, the results go missing."

What is this? Up 'til now, the interrogations have had some point to them. Martha's location. The technology Jack used to get her off the _Valiant_. Torchwood's resources, caches of alien technology; the capabilities of his team. More recently, the goal was to make Jack beg. What does the Master want this time?

"Weird is in my job description," Jack points out. Doesn't want to give back anything at all, but he wants to understand this line of questioning—get his footing. Wants to know if it has anything to do with Tish's message, with the Doctor being taken to the infirmary. "Stuff happens."

"How?"

"What?" Maybe Jack really is a little fuzzy from the blow, from the gin. He's having trouble keeping up, here.

"How do you do it? When somebody's near death and you bring them back, _how do you do it?_ "

Jack shrugs.

"You shouldn't believe everything you read. Especially at the Ministry of Defence."

"Oh, but these are Torchwood files. The good stuff. There are no more secrets on Planet Earth. All the lines of communication come through me. Isn't that nice?"

The Master's smile is fleeting, goading.

_Damn._

"Then you know as much as I know."

"I doubt that." The Master nods to the guard to Jack's left. "Unchain him."

Jack feels off balance when one shackle comes loose, like he's forgotten how to stand up without the support. He turns his head to watch the guy unlock the one on his left, then stumbles forward, exaggerating his weakness so they have to catch him; making himself an opportunity. How long would he need to keep his hands around the Master's throat to really kill him? The guards pull him backwards before he gets the chance to try, putting six feet between him and the unmoving Master. Jack feels honour-bound to slam his right elbow into one guard's nose, then twist himself around and knee the second one hard in the crotch. Four seconds later, their combined weight bears him to the ground at the Master's feet, knocking the breath out of him

"That's enough," the Master says. Jack, one cheek mashed against the deck, ribs compressed by two-hundred pounds of brainless thug, stares at the Master's shiny shoes. Bespoke, Saville Row. The best. The Master bends over him, speaking slowly and with exaggerated patience. "I'm taking you to your precious Doctor, do you understand? You want that, don't you?"

Jack can only grunt for an answer. The shoes move away.

"Clean him up, then bring him to the infirmary." The voice moves away too. "If he resists again, shoot him neatly in the head, then bring me his corpse."

The guards drag Jack to his feet, then bundle him towards the decontamination shower at the end of the room. They both look like they hope he'll give them an excuse.

Jack grins.

"So. Which one of you lucky guys wants to shower with me?"

 

The _Valiant_ doesn't have a large infirmary, which seems like an oversight when you consider what she was built for. Jack's surprised by the small ward, the suite of side-rooms and offices. He's not surprised to see the Doctor occupying one of the eight beds, but the sight makes his heart sink.

The Master is waiting for him, standing in the middle of the room, perfectly still. The handful of medics stay as far away from him as they can, watchful and nervous.

"What have you done to him?" Jack goes to the Doctor's side, fast as the prisoner-transport restraints will let him. Nobody tries to stop him. The Doctor looks like hell, and he didn't look that great before he started needing the oxygen mask. Now, he's so pale. Clammy-looking. Hooked up to monitors that weren't meant to monitor an alien, but can nonetheless provide a succinct picture of a failing body. Jack's afraid he's been brought here to sit and watch the Doctor die. "What's wrong with him? Oh, God. What have you done?"

He isn't really talking to the Master. To the universe, maybe—to fate. He pulls against the belly chain, trying to touch the only exposed patch of the Doctor's skin, his forehead. Can't reach, and never needed to touch somebody more than he does right now.

"You will speak only when prompted to speak, or there will be consequences. Do you understand me?"

"What?" Jack tears himself away from the nightmare in the bed. Sees a muscle tighten along the Master's jaw, impatience narrowing his eyes. "Help him!"

The Master waves away the guards, waiting until their clumping footsteps are out of earshot before he speaks.

"You help him. And this is your last warning. You _are_ going to obey me. I promise." Black-gloved finger to his lips; a warning look.

Jack glances at the other people in the room. A nurse. Two orderlies. They look like they actually belong in their UNIT gear, and they're too afraid to be some of the Master's glossy collaborators. They look back at Jack, pleading with him to comply, or to save them, or... something.

He stares too long. The Master turns, following his gaze and pinning the audience with his own stare, merciless.

"Don't you lot have work to do? It's time for your patient's medicine."

They hustle to look busy. Jack stares down at the Doctor again.

"There's more to it than rumour, isn't there?" When the Master speaks quietly, you can fall into his voice like a pool of warm water. You _want_ to hear him. Jack knows how to resist, and more importantly _when_ to resist, but he isn't even sure this is psychic manipulation. Just the man's presence in the room, and that voice. He shudders. "This ability of yours to revive the dying. I've had as good a look at your cells as I can without actually dissecting you. You have life the way other people have a disease. He's your friend, so help him."

"He said you were his friend, once," Jack spits back. "You did this to him!"

The Master moves _so_ fast—grabs hold of the approaching nurse and throws her against the wall to his right. Just throws her, head first, almost casual; a display of upper-body strength that could only belong to an alien. The woman slumps awkwardly to the foot of the wall and leaves a smear of blood all the way down the panelling. The other medics start to move in, trained to help a casualty—to function under fire. Then they remember that this isn't the world they trained to serve, that they could well be next, and they freeze, staring at the Master in terror that smothers their outrage. The stainless steel bowl the woman carried is still clattering next to her on the floor, spilling its small cargo of medical items next to her outflung arm.

"Have I made myself clear to you now, Jack?" The Master adjusts the cuff of his left glove, pulling the leather tighter over his fingers. "You will speak only when you're spoken to, and you will answer my questions."

Jack stares at him with his mouth open. Swallowing, catching his shock before it turns into anger and decides to lash out, Jack nods his head.

"Clear."

"Good."

Memory replays what Jack missed in the moment, sick in every detail. That sound when her head hit the wall. The cries from her colleagues, shrinking back now against the opposite wall. The growl of rage in the Master's throat as he moved. His own intake of breath, that impotent little jerk towards the Master before it was too late, all over. Dead.

"Can you save _her?_ " Malice drips from every word. Jack swallows again, all the words, and lowers his gaze to the ground, backing down.

"No."

"Can you save him?" The Master goes to the fallen women. For a confused second, Jack thinks he's going to help her, do something decent with the body... something human. Cover her, maybe. Instead, the Master picks up the syringe she'd been carrying towards the Doctor. He brings it over, shows it to Jack. Tiny dose of amber fluid. "This should be helping him more than it is. He isn't fighting for his life."

The Doctor? Not fighting for life? That description just doesn't compute. Jack shakes his head, afraid of what words can do here.

Obedience comes hard. He could choke on the hate.

"Can I speak?" He manages something that looks and sounds more like submission than anything else he's given the Master these past few months.

It's good enough to pass.

"To the point, yes. You may speak."

Jack wants to put his hands around the Master's throat and squeeze, and to hell with the consequences.

"If you want the Doctor to get better, why haven't you turned him back? Made him strong like he was before, young, so he can fight?"

"Assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that I cannot or will not do so."

Jack nods, picking his way through his crowding thoughts for the right words. The safe ones.

"What's the matter with him?"

"He's dying." Curt, controlling his expression and, if Jack's any judge, his breathing, the Master stands over the Doctor on the left side of the bed, turns back the thin hospital blanket and exposes the sick man to the waist. They've put him in pyjamas, the striped cotton sort that never come into style and never go away either. Jack wants to drag the Master's hands away when he starts unbuttoning the bottom of the shirt; when he pushes down the drawstring waistband that's at least three sizes too big on the Doctor's body, exposing him to the crease of his thigh and the greyed nest of curls across his pubic area. "This—" the Master displays the syringe as he uncaps the needle, "—is stabilising his genetic structure." He injects the stuff into the Doctor's abdomen, picking a spot just to the right of a series of evolving bruises around other, older punctures. "And it's working. But he isn't fighting the infection. He isn't trying to heal himself, and he's incapable of regeneration."

_Thanks to you._

Jack nods again. Screens his words before letting them out his mouth.

"Are you sure he can beat this without regenerating?" Hesitant, this much cooperation and toleration feeling like collaboration, like dirty conspiracy, Jack reaches towards the Doctor's face. The chain attaching his handcuffs to the belt at his waist brings him up short, frustrated. "I've never seen him this sick."

He feels rather than sees the Master giving him a dark look.

"And from that you infer that he's incapable of _being_ so unwell?"

"No, I just..."

"It's a matter of image, you see." The Master looks over his shoulder, catches the eye of the nearest cowering orderly and summons him with a jerk of the head. Hands him the syringe and indicates, with a gesture, that the Doctor can be buttoned and covered up again. The man who obeys the silent orders shakes so hard he can hardly manage the shirt buttons.

"I don't understand."

The Master comes around the bed and stands behind him, too close—right in his personal space. Even when he has Jack chained to the wall, intimate as murder, he doesn't do that. It's all Jack can do to stand his ground. Not fear. Revulsion. Hate turning to a sour sickness in his stomach. Deftly, silently except for the subtle hum of alien technology, the Master unlocks the restraint belt, freeing Jack's hands and feet.

"I really think that my people—our people—started to believe their own publicity. Immortal. Invincible. Perennially wise and wonderful, the Time Lords of Gallifrey." The Master beckons for Jack to face him, and turns that laser probe thing of his on the handcuffs. "It's bollocks, obviously. Time travel and twelve regenerations. That's all that really sets us apart from the animals. The herd." He catches Jack's look of blank incomprehension. "If he was ill, he'd hide it from you," he explains, as if to an infant. "From any mere human."

He's probably right.

The Master leaves his ankles chained together. Jack rubs his wrists in turn, then does what he wanted to do all along and lays his left hand across the Doctor's brow. He gasps.

"He's freezing! I mean, I know you people run cold, but..."

Waving him into silence, the Master looks annoyed, like Jack's observation is irrelevant.

"A hibernation state. A healing coma, or it should be. Help him."

It isn't a request, it's a command, but Jack detects... something. Just a cracked half-note of... need?

"I... You're right, sometimes I've been able to pass on some of this energy that keeps me alive," he blurts, words trying to tumble over each other. "But I don't know how. I don't... They have to take it. They have to want it more than they want to move on." He's never articulated that before; feels it slot into his understanding and make sense, now. "It's not me doing it. God knows I'd..." Jack stops there. Won't give the Master that much of himself. God knows he'd give anything—give it all for the Doctor. Some days it feels like he already has. Everything. "He has to take it. That's all I know. I swear. I've got life to spare, and I can share that, but I can't gift-wrap it. They have to want it, and take it from me."

The Master, still at his shoulder, hears him out and has no comment on the rambling honesty.

"Sit with him. Stay with him. Do whatever it is that you humans do for him. I don't know. Hold his hand. Plait his hair, tell him how special he is. Whatever it is he keeps you around for."

 _Save him,_ is what Jack hears. Beneath the Master's snide indifference, desperation.

"Can I talk to him?"

"Do what you need to do. But disobey me, defy me, and you'll need a tally chart to keep track of all the people who die paying for your mistake. Starting with these." He points at each of the orderlies in turn. "Understood?"

Jack looks at him, properly, just for a second; needs to know that he means what he says. The Master's eyes are pitiless. Jack nods. Whispers,

"Yeah."

"Good." The Master leaves, not looking back. The second the door closes behind him, the orderlies both run over to the dead woman. Jack knows she's gone, was dead on impact, but they try to help her anyway. That's all they know how to do.

He sits down hard on a high stool next to the bed. For a second he thinks he's gonna cry; this relative freedom on top of everything else more than he can endure. Too much of a shock to the system. But the Doctor needs him. Jack moves the blanket enough that he can grip the Doctor's left hand with both of his own. The Doctor doesn't react.

For a little while, Jack lets himself rest there and appreciate skin-on-skin; a friend, an ally. Even an unconscious one whose breathing is shallow and stuttering behind a plastic mask.

When it comes down to it, all he can do is plead, and wonder if the Master already tried the same tactic and failed. Jack finds himself wary of how normal his body is beginning to feel, free to move and clean in a fresh boiler-suit that almost fits. He's healing, all the residual tears and strains, and the bruises from the payback the Master's goons delivered in the shower cubicle. It won't last, this new normality, and that's harder to deal with than the pain or the chains.

Jack deals with it anyway.

Nobody stops him pulling the curtains shut around the Doctor's bed, but Jack's decisive movement snaps the orderlies out of whatever fantasy world they'd been in. They stop giving CPR, voices going hesitant, unbelieving. Then silent.

"I'm sorry," Jack whispers, glad they can't see his face. He's speaking to the Doctor, not to them.

He goes back to the stool, scoots it as near to the bed as it'll go, and leans over the Doctor. Left arm across the pillow, kind of curled around the man's head. Jack wants to hold him, but there'll be a camera somewhere. Nothing private here aboard the _Valiant_. He lets the fingers of his right hand fuss with the fold of the blanket and the top button of the stupid, oversized pyjamas. Jack leans in as close as he can, and keeps his voice low.

"Hey." Doesn't know until he's said it that he's expecting, hoping for, some sort of response to his voice. But the Doctor is way past that. He's hanging on to life by a thread, breath by faltering breath. "So, listen. He wants me to help you. I don't know if I can. I know you hate what I am, and that's okay. But sometimes, I can..." God, it sounds absurd, out loud. He's had his reasons for keeping the details out of his reports, making sure blood and tissue samples go missing, and one of those reasons is that he can't explain it. Doesn't even believe it, most days. "This energy in me, that comes from what I am. I can share it. You can tap it. Enough to tip the balance, but you gotta _want_ it. I can't drag you back from the edge. Just give you enough gas in the tank to make the trip. What do you say?"

He's crying before he's done talking. He's pleading, a hoarse whisper around a lump in his throat that's nothing to do with this nightmare they're all living, and everything to do with the Doctor and missed opportunity. All this time he's waited for a chance, a second chance, then this new Doctor shows up and drags him back into the whirlwind, and there hasn't been any time for the two of them. To know him again. To know him at all.

Jack wipes his face on his forearm, pulling himself together a little. He has to stand up to be able to lean right over, lift the oxygen mask away from the Doctor's lined and pale face, and whisper in his ear.

"We need you. Doctor. I need you. Please. Take what you need. Take it all, if you need it." Closing his eyes, Jack presses his lips to the Doctor's and lingers there, breathing the hospital scent of him and willing it to work. The kiss of life, the miracle, the curse. Whatever it is that Rose went and put inside him, this furnace that's never going to burn out. Life is energy, that's all, and Jack Harkness is giving it away by the bucket load.

The Doctor stops breathing. Jack pulls back and fits the mask again, heart in his mouth, scanning all the monitors in turn. Before he can take it all in, just as something throws an audible alarm to summon help, the Doctor takes another, struggling breath.

"I'm gonna kill him for this," Jack snarls, stumbling over his feet when the orderlies yank back the curtains and one of them barges him out of the way to check on the patient. He ignores them, speaking to the Doctor, months of impotent anger boiling over into a yell. "If you want him to live, you're gonna have to get better and _stop me_ , Doctor. I _will_ kill him if you die on me!"

"He's in a coma," snaps the male orderly, pushing Jack further out of the way. "He can't hear you."

"What do you know? You don't know a damn thing about him!"

Jack walks away, shuffling because of the ankle chain. Lets them do their jobs as it dawns on him that the Master has them nursing the Doctor on pain of death, or worse, death to their families down below. How else could he keep UNIT staff in line? Even Archangel doesn't cancel out a stunt like throwing an innocent woman against a wall so hard her head goes flat. The Master doesn't have to rely on hypnosis to secure obedience when he has terror at his disposal.

And Jack's terrified. Up until now, he's been... stubborn. Defiant because it's the thing to do, because it's what the Doctor would do. But if the Doctor dies...

The medics raise the head of the Doctor's bed and settle him before going back to their fallen colleague. She's covered over by a sheet, now. Jack doesn't stay to watch them carry her away. He goes back to the Doctor instead; shuts the curtains, takes up his place again, and holds the chilly hand like before. Waiting for something to give.

They inject the patient with the yellow stuff every few hours, tending to him, keeping notes. Neither of them says a word to Jack until the _Valiant_ has switched over to night lighting. Then the woman, gaunt and pale with the strain, brings Jack a meal on a tray. Pie and mash, gravy and peas. Mug of tea and a can of lemonade. He hasn't seen that much food in months; has to drag his greedy eyes away from the sight of it, wishing he couldn't smell the rich steak and kidney gravy.

"Better not," he says, gently. "He'd punish you. You have it."

"It's his orders," she replies. From her voice, Jack can tell that she's not completely subdued. She's still UNIT, crisp and precise. Surviving this, just like him. "We've been ordered to make you comfortable until the Doctor recovers. Use the next bed. There are toiletry packs and towels in the facilities. I... I heard that you don't need any medical attention." She doesn't quite make that a question.

Jack doesn't know what to say. For some reason, he thinks of Tish Jones and how badly she could do with this meal. The orderly can't be much older than Tish.

He takes the tray, uncertainly, like a hot meal is going to turn out to be a trap. It's been that kind of a day.

"Thanks."

It's too much food—too rich after too long on too little. Jack struggles to go a bite at a time instead of wolfing it down and ending up sick, so he talks to the Doctor in between careful mouthfuls; talks about everything from piecrusts through the ages to the Torchwood plumbing. Whoever the Master has listening in on this, they'll have more information to wade through than they can easily process, and all of it trivial crap that won't give the Master any new ammunition.

Small victories. Those matter. He keeps talking.

Jack wants to believe that the sound of his voice can be enough, immortality be damned, but the Doctor doesn't move. His eyelids don't even twitch. His breathing doesn't change.

There's a shift-change mid-evening. He overhears the exchange of whispers at the door; the news update.

Her name was Claire. The woman who died today because of him. Somewhere down on the planet, she has a husband who won't know she's dead; a hostage, like their own families. And Jack's sorry, he truly is, but he's left clutching a straw of triumph. Now he's sure that the remaining UNIT people are acting under duress, not hypnosis; he can start figuring out who's who, and who he can count on when the Master loses his grip on power.

He can infer something else from it, as well. The Master's never threatened Jack's team—never tried to use them against him the way he used the Jones family against Martha, or Nurse Claire's husband against her. And that means, probably, if there's any justice left anywhere, that the Master doesn't have them, dead or alive. Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Ianto—they're out there somewhere, and they'll be fighting all the way, just like Martha Jones. He can believe it, anyway.

After midnight, Jack pulls the bed he was offered alongside the Doctor's and lies down facing him, reaching across the gap to hold his icy-cold hand. He's almost forgotten how a mattress feels under him, how not being dead on his feet feels. How lying down next to someone he loves feels.

"I'm here," he murmurs, thinking it more than he makes the sound. The Doctor's telepathic—senses things most people don't even know about. On the edge of exhausted sleep, Jack reaches out and just tries to... give. Himself, his love, his anything. Wills the Doctor to take it all, and live through the night.

Jack sleeps six hours straight, holding the Doctor's hand, and doesn't even dream. 

**Author's Note:**

> You may not repost or redistribute this fanwork in any form, including audio recording and translation, without the written permission of the author.
> 
> Many thanks, as always, to the keenly observant and cleverly brilliant Luthien for her help with this story.


End file.
